Author | Victor Appleton |
---|---|
Original title | Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel, or, the Hidden City of the Andes |
Language | English |
Series | Tom Swift |
Genre | Young adult novel Adventure novel |
Publisher | Grosset & Dunlap |
Publication date | 1916 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 200+ pp |
ISBN | 978-1515136699 |
Preceded by | Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship |
Followed by | Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders |
Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel, or, the Hidden City of the Andes, is Volume 19 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.
The Titus Brothers Contractors company have won a government contract in Peru to blast a tunnel through a mountain and connect two isolated railroad lines. The deadline is approaching, and the contractors have hit a literal wall: excessively hard rock which defies conventional blasting techniques. The company is under pressure to finish, or else the contract will default to their rivals, Blakeson & Grinder. Mr. Job Titus has heard of Tom Swift and Tom's giant cannon, which is used in protecting the Panama Canal, and wants to hire Tom to develop a special blasting powder to help them finish the excavation.
Mr. Damon, Tom's very good friend, arrives in the middle of this conversation, and is unaware of the situation. By coincidence, Mr. Damon is invested in a business which procures cinchona bark from Peru, but production has all but ceased, prompting Mr. Damon to invite Tom to accompany him to Peru and discover the source of the problem.
Tom, Mr. Damon and Mr. Titus (along with Koku, Tom's giant) embark for Peru. On the way, they encounter Professor Swyington Bumper, who is on a lifelong quest to locate the lost city of Pelone. Professor Bumper returns to Peru each season, and has thus far been unsuccessful. When Professor Bumper discovers that Tom is headed to the same general area, Rimac, Professor Bumper decides to join the company.
Early in the book, Tom is working a new gyroscope, but events soon overtake that project, and Tom puts that aside for the time being.
In Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon , Tom has developed a new propellant to launch the projectiles from his giant cannon, and when Mr. Titus requests Tom's help, Tom begins to develop a new blasting powder. Ultimately Tom finds a suitable solution which can blast through heavy rock with ease. While on the job site, several blasts into the mountain, the rock changes into an even harder substance. Tom needs to modify his formula from a "quick burn" into a "slow burn" blast; rather than blasting the rock via concussion alone, the new formula first builds high pressure in the fissures of the rock, before the concussion splits the rock.
In the 1990s TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Indiana Jones is dating Tom Swift's author's daughter, and in one scene assists Mr. Stratemeyer in forwarding the plot of Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel.
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents, and stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germany, and was patented in 1867. It rapidly gained wide-scale use as a more robust alternative to the traditional black powder explosives. It allows the use of nitroglycerine's favorable explosive properties while greatly reducing its risk of accidental detonation.
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines, tunnels, and roads.
Tom Swift Jr. is the central character in a series of 33 science fiction adventure novels for male adolescents, following in the tradition of the earlier Tom Swift ("Senior") novels. The series was titled The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures. Unlike the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys titles that were also products of the prolific Stratemeyer Syndicate, the original Tom Swift stories were not rewritten in the 1950s to modernize them. It was decided that the protagonist of the new series would be the son of the earlier Tom Swift and his wife, Mary Nestor Swift; the original hero continued as a series regular, as did his pal Ned Newton. The covers were created by illustrator J. Graham Kaye. Covers in the later half of the series were mostly by Charles Brey. A total of 33 volumes were eventually published.
John Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. Tunnels are excavated through hard rock, wet or dry soil, or sand, each of which requires specialized technology.
Internal ballistics, a subfield of ballistics, is the study of the propulsion of a projectile.
Smokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to black powder. Because of their similar use, both the original black powder formulation and the smokeless propellant which replaced it are commonly described as gunpowder. The combustion products of smokeless powder are mainly gaseous, compared to around 55% solid products for black powder. In addition, smokeless powder does not leave the thick, heavy fouling of hygroscopic material associated with black powder that causes rusting of the barrel.
Indiana Jones Adventure is an enhanced motion vehicle dark ride attraction based on the Indiana Jones film series, located at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Guests accompany intrepid archaeologist Dr. Indiana Jones on a turbulent quest, aboard military troop transport vehicles, through a dangerous subterranean lost temple guarded by a supernatural power.
Milo is a chocolate-flavoured malted powder product produced by Nestlé, typically mixed with milk, hot water, or both, to produce a beverage. It was originally developed in Australia by Thomas Mayne (1901–1995) in 1934.
Drilling and blasting is the controlled use of explosives and other methods, such as gas pressure blasting pyrotechnics, to break rock for excavation. It is practiced most often in mining, quarrying and civil engineering such as dam, tunnel or road construction. The result of rock blasting is often known as a rock cut.
Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft is a four-CD box set released by Guided by Voices in 2000. Named for the reputed literal suitcase in which the bandleader Robert Pollard allegedly stored his hundreds of unreleased tapes, the set is a trawl through decades worth of material from throughout Guided by Voices' recorded career.
Hercules, Inc. was a chemical and munitions manufacturing company based in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, incorporated in 1912 as the Hercules Powder Company following the breakup of the DuPont explosives monopoly by the U.S. Circuit Court in 1911. Hercules Powder Company became Hercules, Inc. in 1966, operating under this name until 2008, when it was merged into Ashland Inc.
Buccaneer Bunny is a 1948 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on May 8, 1948, and features Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.
The Great Siege Tunnels in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, also known as the Upper Galleries, are a series of tunnels inside the northern end of the Rock of Gibraltar. They were dug out from the solid limestone by the British during the Great Siege of Gibraltar of the late 18th century.
Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat, or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure, is Volume 4 in the original Tom Swift novel series, written by Victor Appleton and published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Tower Hill State Park is a state park of Wisconsin, United States, which contains the reconstructed Helena Shot Tower. The original shot tower was completed in 1832 and manufactured lead shot until 1860. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The park abuts the Wisconsin River and is bordered by state-owned land comprising the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway.
Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon, or, The Longest Shots on Record, is Volume 16 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.
SpongeBob's Truth or Square is a 2009 video game based on the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants episode with the same title. It was released on October 26, 2009, for the Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable. Altron developed a Nintendo DS version of the game.
Since its debut in 1981, the Indiana Jones franchise has become part of American popular culture. References have been made in television series, movies, music and other material since the original film was released.
The Baltimore Mine Tunnel disaster was an explosion that occurred on June 5, 1919 just inside the mouth of Baltimore Tunnel No. 2. The Delaware and Hudson Coal Company's mine employed 450 workers and was located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, about a mile from the center of the city near the modern day corner of North Sherman, Spring, and Pine Streets. Ninety-two miners were killed and 44 injured in the explosion, which was caused by the ignition of black blasting powder. Only 7 miners escaped without injury.