Tom grinned. “Chow told me last night this gadget looked like a fireplug under a rose trellis and I ought to call it Fireplug Rose! But I’ve given it a more dignified name-the Quakelizor, which stands for an underground quake wave deflector.”
Briefly, Tom explained the various parts of his latest invention, which consisted of a hydrant-sized cylinder to be inserted into the ground, with magnetic coils near the top. A smaller hydraulic cylinder, mounted above this, was wired to a metal framework and radio transmitter.
“This setup will detect any incoming enemy shock waves,” Tom said. “We’ll need fifty of ‘em, so turn the job over to Swift Construction. And have Uncle Ned put on extra shifts.”
The Swift Construction Company, managed by Ned Newton, was the commercial division which mass-produced Tom Jr.‘s and Tom Sr.‘s inventions.
Information from the detector-transmitters, Tom went on, would be fed into an electronic computer at the Bureau of Mines in Washington.
THE CAVE MONSTER 77
The Quakelizor itself was housed in a massive cube-shaped casting with two large spheres mounted on top. From each of its four sides jutted a hydraulic piston.
“How does it work, Tom?” Hank asked.
“Dual-control spheres on top,” Tom explained, “will receive by radio signal the pulse frequency computed in Washington.”
He added that inside each sphere was a “pulsemaker.” This would produce changes in the pressure of the hydraulic fluid by affecting the kinetic energy of the fluid’s atoms.
The pressure changes would then be enormously magnified in the four hydraulic output drivers. When the unit was embedded in rock, underground, the huge pistons would send out counter shock waves through the earth’s crust to neutralize the enemy waves.