Tom Swift and His Undersea Search; Or, the Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic

by Victor Appleton

  Produced by Anthony Matonac

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH

  or

  The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic

  by

  VICTOR APPLETON

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I UNTOLD MILLIONS II A STRANGE OFFER III THINKING IT OVER IV AGAINST HIS WILL V BUSY DAYS VI MARY'S ODD STORY VII THE TRIAL TRIP VIII THE MUD BANK IX READY TO START X STARTLING REVELATIONS XI BARTON KEITH'S STORY XII IN DEEP WATERS XIII THE SEA MONSTER XIV IN STRANGE PERIL XV TOM TO THE RESCUE XVI GASPING FOR AIR XVII WHERE IS IT? XVIII A SEPARATION XIX THE SERPENT WEED XX THE DEVIL FISH XXI A WAR REMINDER XXII STUDYING CURRENTS XXIII AN UNDERSEA COLLISION XXIV THE TREASURE SHIP XXV THE STEEL BOX

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH

  CHAPTER I

  UNTOLD MILLIONS

  "Tom, this is certainly wonderful reading! Over a hundred milliondollars' worth of silver at the bottom of the ocean! More than twohundred million dollars in gold! To say nothing of fifty millions incopper, ten millions in--"

  "Say, hold on there, Ned! Hold on! Where do you get that stuff; as theboys say? Has something gone wrong with one of the adding machines, oris it just on account of the heat? What's the big idea, anyhow? Howmany millions did you say?" and Tom Swift, the talented young inventor,looked at Ned Newton, his financial manager, with a quizzical smile.

  "It's all right, Tom! It's all right!" declared Ned, and it needed buta glance to show that he was more serious than was his companion. "I'mnot suffering from the heat, though the thermometer is getting close toninety-five in the shade. And if you want to know where I get 'thatstuff' read this!"

  He tossed over to his chum, employer, and friend--for Tom Swift assumedall three relations toward Ned Newton--part of a Sunday newspaper. Itwas turned to a page containing a big illustration of a diver attiredin the usual rubber suit and big helmet, moving about on the floor ofthe ocean and digging out boxes of what was supposed to be gold from asunken wreck.

  "Oh, that stuff!" exclaimed Tom, with a smile of disbelief as he sawthe source of Ned's information. "Seems to me I've read something likethat before, Ned!"

  "Of course you have!" agreed the young financial manager of the newlyorganized Swift Construction Company. "It isn't anything new. Thiswealth of untold millions has been at the bottom of the sea for manyyears--always increasing with nobody ever spending a cent of it. Andsince the Great War this wealth has been enormously added to because ofthe sinking of so many ships by German submarines."

  "Well, what's that got to do with us, Ned?" asked Tom, as he lookedover some blue prints and other papers on his desk, for the talk wastaking place in his office. "You and I did our part in the war, but Idon't see what all this undersea wealth has to do with us. We've gotour work cut out for us if we take care of all the new contracts thatcame in this week."

  "Yes, I know," admitted Ned. "But I couldn't help calling yourattention to this article, Tom. It's authentic!"

  "Authentic? What do you mean?

  "Well, the man who wrote it went to the trouble of getting from theship insurance companies a list of all the wrecks and lost vesselscarrying gold and silver coin, bullion, and other valuables. He hasgone back a hundred years, and he brings it right down to just beforethe war. Hasn't had time to compile that list, the article says. Butwithout counting the vessels the Germans sank, there is, in variousplaces on the bottom of the ocean today, wrecks of ships that carried,when they went down, gold, silver, copper and other metals to the valueof at least ten billions of dollars!"

  Tom Swift did not seem to be at all surprised by the explosive emphasiswith which Ned Newton conveyed this information. He gazed calmly at hisfriend and manager, and then handed the paper back.

  "I haven't time to look at it now," said Tom. "But is there anythingnew in the story? I mean has any of the wealth been recoveredlately--or is it in a way to be?"

  "Yes!" exclaimed Ned. "It is! A company has been formed in Japan forthe purpose of using a new kind of diving bell, invented by anAmerican, it seems. The inventor claims that in his machine he can godown deeper than ever man went before, and bring up a lot of this lostocean wealth."

  "Well, every so often an inventor, or some one who calls himself that,crops up with a new proposal for cleaning up the untold millions on thefloor of the Atlantic or the Pacific," replied Tom. "Mind you, I'm notsaying it isn't there. Everybody knows that hundreds of ships carryinggold and silver have gone down in storms or been sunk in war. And someof the gold and silver has been recovered by divers--I admit that. Infact, if you recall, my father and I perfected a new style diving dressa few years ago that was successfully used in getting down to a wreckoff the Cuban coast. A treasure ship went down there, and I believethey recovered a large part of the gold bullion--or perhaps it wassilver.

  "But this diving bell stunt isn't new, and it hasn't been successful.Of course a man can go down to a greater depth in a thick iron divingbell than he can in a diving suit. That's common knowledge. But thetrouble with a diving bell is that it can't be moved about as a man canmove about in a diving suit. The man in the bell can't get inside thewreck, and it's there where the gold or silver is usually to be found."

  "Can't they blow the wreck apart with dynamite, and scatter the gold onthe bottom of the ocean?" asked Ned.

  "Yes, they could do that, but usually they scatter it so far, and theocean currents so cover it with sand, that it is impossible ever to getit again. I admit that if a wreck is blown apart a man in a diving bellcan perhaps get a small part of it. But the limitations of a divingbell are so well recognized that several inventors have tried adjustingmovable arms to the bell, to be operated by the man inside."

  "Did they work?" asked Ned.

  "After a fashion, yes. But I never heard of any case where the gold andsilver recovered paid for the expenses of making the bell and sendingmen down in it. For it takes the same sort of outfit to aid the man inthe diving bell as it does the diver in his usual rubber or steel suit.Air has to be pumped to him, and he has to be lowered and raised."

  "Well, isn't there any way of getting at this gold on the floor of theocean?" asked Ned, his enthusiasm a little cooled by the practical"cold water" Tom had thrown.

  "Oh, yes, of course there is, in a way," was the answer of the younginventor. "Don't you remember how my father and I, with Mr. Damon andCaptain Weston, went in our submarine, the Advance, and discovered thewreck of the Boldero?"

  "I do recall that," admitted Ned.

  "Well," resumed Tom, "there was a case of showing how much trouble wehad. An ordinary diving outfit never would have answered. We had tolocate the wreck, and a hard time we had doing it. Then, when we foundit, we had to ram the old ship and blow it apart before we could getinside. Even after that we just happened to discover the gold, as itwere. I'm only mentioning this to show you it isn't so easy to get atthe wealth under the sea as writers in Sunday newspaper supplementsthink it is."

  "I believe you, Tom. And yet it seems a shame to have all thosemillions going to waste, doesn't it?" And Ned spoke as a banker andfinancial man, who is not happy unless money is earning interest allthe while.

  "Well, a billion of dollars is a lot," Tom admitted. "And when youthink of all that have been sunk, say even in the last hundred years,it amazes one. But still, all the gold and silver was hidden in theearth before it was dug out, and now it's only gone back where it camefrom, in a way. We got along before men dug it out and coined it i
ntomoney, and I guess we'll get along when it's under water. No useworrying over the ocean treasures, as far as I'm concerned."

  "You're a hopeless proposition!" laughed Ned. "You'd never make abanker, or a Napoleon of finance."

  "That's why my father and I got you to look after our financialaffairs," and Tom smiled. "You're just the one--with yourinterest-bearing mind--to keep us off the shoals of business trouble."

  "Yes, I suppose I can do that, while you and your father go oninventing giant cannons, great searchlights, submarines, and airships,"conceded Ned. "But this, to me, did look like an easy way of makingmoney."

  "How's that, Ned?" asked Tom, a new note coming into his voice. "Wereyou thinking of going to Japan and taking a hand in the underseasearch?"

  "No. But stock in this company is being sold, and shareholders stand towin big returns--if the wrecks are come upon."

  "That's just it!" exclaimed Tom. "If they find the wrecks! And let metell you, Ned, that there's a mighty big 'if' in it all. Do yourealize how hard it is to find anything on the ocean, to say nothing ofsomething under it?"

  "I hadn't thought of it."

  "Well, you'd better think of it. You know on the ocean sailors have tolocate a certain imaginary position by calculation, using the sun andstars as guides. Of course, they have navigation down pretty fine, anda good pilot can get to a place on the surface of the ocean and meetanother craft there almost as well as you and I can make an appointmentto meet at Main and Broad streets at a certain hour.

  "But lots of times there are errors in calculations or a storm comes uphiding the sun and stars, and, instead of a captain getting to where hewants to, he's anywhere from one to a hundred miles out. Now thelocation of Broad and Main Streets doesn't change even in a storm.

  "And I'm not saying that a location on an ocean changes. I'm onlysaying that the least disturbance or error in calculation makes italmost impossible to find the exact spot. And if it's that hard on thesurface, where you can see what you're doing, how much harder is it inregard to something on the bottom of the sea? So don't take any stockin these ocean treasure recovering companies. They may not be fakes,but they're mighty uncertain."

  "Oh, I don't know that I was really going to buy any stock in thisJapanese concern, Tom. I only thought it would be interesting to thinkabout. And perhaps you might sell them a submarine or some of yourdiving apparatus."

  "Nothing doing, Ned. We've got other plans, my father and I. There'sthat new tractor for use in the big wheat-growing belt, to say nothingof--"

  Tom's remarks were interrupted by voices outside his office door. Onevoice, in particular, rose above the others. It said:

  "No can go in! The Master he am busily! No can go in!"

  "Nonsense, Koku!" exclaimed a man, and at the sound of his voice Tomand Ned smiled. "Nonsense! Of course I can go in! Why, bless my watchfob, I must go in! I've got the greatest proposition to lay before TomSwift that he ever heard of! There's at least a million in it! Let mepass, Koku!"

  "Mr. Damon!" murmured Tom Swift. "I wonder what he has on his mind now?"

  As he spoke the door opened rather violently and a short, stout man,evidently much excited, fairly burst into the room, followed, moresedately, by a stranger.