As Bud gunned the engine, the grinding hum of the earth blaster rose to an ear-shattering roar.
The machine looked like a gigantic torpedo and was comprised of three main parts. Mounted to a heavy swivel base was a long, gleaming steel cylinder which could be tilted in any direction. It housed a compact atomic pile to power the implement. Ex-2 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ATOMIC BLASTER
tending from the cylinder was a narrower shaft, containing transmission gears to conduct the power to the nose end of the shaft. This end was armed with a pair of revolving steel discs which could chew into the hardest rock.
As the machine bored into the ground, Tom suddenly noticed that Bud was swerving to the right.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” he warned.
The young inventor had obtained permission from a farmer to dig on a vacant section of partially wooded land adjacent to the right of way for a water conduit.
Tom had chosen this spot, a quarter of a mile off the highway near Shopton, because its rocky formation would provide a better test than the Enterprises’
loamy ground.
Unknowingly, Bud was now steering toward the water company’s right of way!
As the huge truck rumbled along, the machine plowed a deep trench in the ground. A steady stream of pulverized dirt and rock spewed out of the rear of the cylinder into the trailer.
Tom sprinted faster in a frantic effort to catch up with the lurching monster.
“Hold it!” he yelled. “Stop the truck! There’s a water conduit over there!”
But the thundering roar of the earth blaster drowned out his voice.