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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1961, renewed 1989 by Jay Williams & Raymond Abrashkin.
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Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
THE DANNY DUNN SERIES
Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint
Danny Dunn on a Desert Island
Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine
Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine
Danny Dunn on the Ocean Floor
Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave
Danny Dunn and the Heat Ray
Danny Dunn, Time Traveler
Danny Dunn and the Automatic House
Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space
Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine
Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster
Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy
Danny Dunn Scientific Detective
Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue
DEDICATION
This book is for Sally Hyman and for Lance Richard King.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to express their thanks to John Atwood—Director of Research, Perkin-Elmer Corporation—for technical advice and information, and to Rose Wyler of Science Materials Center, for information concerning the Geiger-Müller Counter.
CHAPTER ONE
From a Clear Sky
Danny Dunn, his face flaming almost as red as his hair from the August heat, came panting up on the summit of the Sugarloaf, the highest point of the hills above the town of Midston. He paused, mopping his forehead, and looked out over the wide valley below, at the little toy blocks of houses, the red brick of the College buildings, and beyond them, the shining silver of the reservoir lake.
Then he shouted over his shoulder, “Irene! Joe! Come on! It’s this way.”
Irene Miller and Joe Pearson toiled up behind him. Joe’s long thin face was even gloomier than usual, and as he came to the flat stones at the summit he gave a loud, sad sneeze.
“Bless you,” said Irene, switching her glossy dark pony-tail from side to side to drive away the gnats which buzzed around her face. “Don’t tell me you’re catching cold on a hot day like this?”
“Id’s nod a code,” Joe mumbled. “Id’s addergy.”
“Addergy? Goodness, Dan, do you think that’s something catching?” Irene grinned.
“Allergy, I guess he means,” Danny said. “Poor old Joe. He’s allergic to climbing, to exercise, to perspiring, to mountains—”
“Okay, okay,” Joe howled, flapping his hands. “Very fuddy. The side of the hill is all cubbered wid godded-rod, ad I’b addergic to dat!”
Danny looked sympathetically at his friend’s red nose and streaming eyes. “Well, there’s no goldenrod up here,” he said. “And the breeze ought to make you feel better. Let’s rest for a minute.”
They made themselves comfortable on the sun-warmed stone, and Danny pointed to a bulge of gray rock swelling out on the mountain face below them. A wide crack split it diagonally.
“We can follow that crack down,” he said.
Joe glanced at his watch. “Eleved o’clock,” he said.
“I know just what you’re thinking,” said Danny. “Do we have time to find the cave, explore it, and still get home in time for lunch? Right?”
Joe nodded, and blew his nose several times. He was beginning to feel a good deal better in spite of himself, and when he spoke again it was in a clearer voice. “It isn’t that I’m hungry,” he said. “It’s just that I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast.”
“Not counting those two candy bars and the apple,” said Irene.
“I mean real food.”
Dan, with his elbows on his knees, peered out over the countryside. “Gosh, it’s pretty up here,” he said. “Makes you feel like a giant. Just think, there was a time when all that valley was water.”
“Water? You mean some kind of flood?” said Joe.
“No, Professor Bullfinch says that all this part of the country was once covered by a sea. What were standing on was part of the bottom.”
“Good thing it isn’t a sea now,” Joe remarked. “We’d have to go to school wearing aqualungs.”
“Oh, Joe, that was millions of years ago,” said Irene. “Maybe even before the dinosaurs lived.”
“Then how does Professor Bullfinch know about it? He’s no dinosaur,” said Joe. He lay back and stared up at the sky, yawning.
“Scientists find out from studying the rocks and the clay and sand, and types of earth, and the fossils in them,” Danny replied. “And believe me, what Professor Bullfinch doesn’t know about science isn’t worth knowing.”
Danny had been brought up in the house of Professor Euclid Bullfinch, who taught at Midston College and who was famous for his private researches. Dan’s father had died when the boy was very young, and Mrs. Dunn had taken the job of housekeeper for the Professor. Between the scientist and the child a real affection had grown up, almost like that of father and son, and the Professor had taught Dan a great deal about the wonders of science.
The boy continued, “They’ve found fossils of shellfish and plants and things that show how the sea bottom filled up with mud. Then something—maybe earthquakes—changed the course of the streams and the sea dried up or receded. Now there are only a few little trickles left, and Midston River, and the reservoir.”
“Gosh, maybe we’ll find some fossils in the cave,” murmured Irene.
“If we ever reach it,” said Joe. “Come on, let’s get going. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can go find some sandwiches.”
Danny began the descent along the crack in the rock, setting his feet in it with care and bracing his hands against the face of the stone. After a short distance, the crack widened until it was a narrow shelf that ran diagonally along the rocky face. This, in turn, gave way to great ragged boulders among which grew scrub oaks and junipers. There were blueberry bushes, too, weedy grass, and then, a little further down, the woods began.
Dan led his friends between the dark trunks of the pines. The ground was slippery with needles, and there was a spicy smell of resin in their nostrils. Gray beech trees and the rough bark of maples appeared,
