Plot

Gyro Gearloose

Gyro Gearloose

Gyro Gearloose is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic chicken created by Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company. He is part of the Scrooge McDuck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge and anyone who is associated with them. He was also a frequent star...

 has invented a "universal solvent", a thick, black liquid capable of instantly dissolving anything except diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s, with it then transforming the dissolved matter into a super-dense dust. Gyro then gives the Universal Sovent (referred to as, "Omnisolve") kept in an diamond jar and a Omnisolve beach umbrella. Scrooge

Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...

 buys the solvent from him, intending on using it in mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

, in order to gain the super pure diamonds located in the outer core of the Earth. However, in his enthusiasm, Scrooge carelessly pours the solvent directly onto the ground, where it eats a solid shaft all the way down to the centre of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 (due to the Omnisolve creating a super-strong and dense lining on the sides of the shaft wall.)

After Huey, Dewey and Louie explain the potentially catastrophic impact of this act - it would eventually lead to the Earth's destruction by destroying the planet's electromagnetic field and causing the Earth to be bombarded with radioactive solar winds - Scrooge, Donald and the boys go on a quest down the shaft to retrieve the solvent. What follows is an underground adventure along the lines of Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

's A Journey to the Center of the Earth.

They first start slowly going down with an ascent platform created by Gyro. In order to stop the air pressure from crushing them, Gyro creates an airlock over the shaft, making the shaft a vacuum, meaning they cannot eat, much to Donald's comical misery. Their platform is also slightly damaged by a falling pebble (which, due to the vacuum having no air to slow it down, was essentially traveling at the speed of a bullet). Scrooge also finds his diamonds, although he is nearly burned by the massive heat of the diamonds, as they were in the outer core. Later, as Scrooge finds out, they soon become essentially weightless, due to their weight being their attraction to the Earth's mass, and as they travel deeper, more of the Earth is above them than below them, making them almost weightless. They also find that they have reached a section of the shaft still with air, meaning that they can now eat, much to Donald's glee.

Eventually, they reach the center, and after Scrooge is nearly killed by the Omnisolve, they are able to capture the Universal Solvent. However, the magma from inside the mantle will soon break through the shaft, making them have to use a rocket flight through inner space. Donald has his helmet destroyed by a falling pebble, but still survives, due to air leaking in from cracks. They soon find that the magma is destroying the shaft from the bottom up, and the top of the shaft is collapsing. They are able to escape due to using the Omnisolve umbrella, which saves them from the falling rocks and allows them to create an escape route, but unfortunately, the magma is able to follow them. They eventually find themselves in Terry Fermy

Land Beneath the Ground!

Land Beneath the Ground! is a Scrooge McDuck comic strip story that appeared in 1956 in the comic book Uncle Scrooge, written by Carl Barks.-Plot:...

, with the Terries and Ferrmies destroying a column, forcing them to use another escape route. They eventually find themselves under the Tulebug River, with the river water solidifying the magma.

They then arrive at the Money Bin (with the help of Gus Goose), with the top of the shaft about to erupt like a Volcano

Volcano

2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...

. Gyro is able to stop the eruption with the Omnisolve umbrella, which causes the magma to be reduced into a super-dense dust hat kept falling back on itself. Scrooge also gets the super-pure diamonds he wanted in the first place (due to them be carried by the magma, but the Omnisolve umbrella couldn't destroy them). Scrooge's Money Bin is also safe, although it is severely tilted, with Scrooge musing he could still have his workers work there by "wearing some special shoes." In the end, Scrooge deems the solvent as a failed investment. While it did succeed in getting him thousands of flawless diamonds from the bowels of the Earth, he didn't take into account that these diamonds are super-dense, and thus even the smallest ones weigh over 100 kg

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...

 (200 pounds) each, making them useless as jewelery, with him then destroying the Omnisolve notes with the Omnisolve itself, much to Gyro's relief.

This story was inspired by the novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth and was based on a Pertwillaby Papers

The Pertwillaby Papers

The Pertwillaby Papers is an adventure comic drawn by the famous Donald Duck artist Don Rosa in the 1970s. The comic is about the adventures of Lancelot "Lance" Pertwillaby and his friends and colleagues around the world....

adventure titled Vortex. It was also likely a partial sequel of the classic Carl Barks

Carl Barks

Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...

 story, Land Beneath the Ground!.

Land Beneath the Ground!

Land Beneath the Ground! is a Scrooge McDuck comic strip story that appeared in 1956 in the comic book Uncle Scrooge, written by Carl Barks.-Plot:...

Don Rosa wrote two sequels to this story, called The Black Knight

The Black Knight (comics)

-Plot:A French gentleman, notorious for his secret identity as Le Chevalier Noir , the world's greatest cat burglar, comes to Duckburg to test his skills against Scrooge's Money Bin. Even with Scrooge and his nephews on high alert, the thief has little trouble entering into the bin and its...

and The Black Knight Glorps Again.