CHAPTER XXXIV
A RACE FOR LIFE
UR hero glanced hurriedly at the telemeter and then at the clock. The latter indicated twenty-five minutes to twelve.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I must have made a mistake somewhere in my calculations. Let me see!" And he hurriedly went over his figures. But now a light dawned on him.
"I am saved!" he shouted. "I forgot that it was only above the earth that the velocity of a falling body increases thirty-two feet every second. As it approaches the center of the earth the increase gradually diminishes until it finally becomes nothing at all.
"Consequently, when I calculated that it would take me only thirty-nine minutes to go through the earth I was wrong. It would really take a
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