ten
o'clock
By evening , when Commander McLaurin called around with some of the other investors in Kendall 's `` bank '' on Luna , the thing was already started , warming up . The fields were being fed and the various scientists of the group were watching with interest . Power was flowing in already at a rate of nearly one hundred thousand horsepower per minute , thanks to a special line given them by New York Power -LRB- a Kendall property -RRB- . At ten o'clock they were beginning to expect the reaction to start . By this time the fields were n't gaining in intensity very rapidly , a maximum intensity had been reached that should , they felt , break the atoms soon . At eleven-thirty , through the little view window , Buck Kendall saw something that made him cry out in amazement . The mercury metal in the receiver , behind its layers of screening was beginning to glow , with a dull reddish light , and little solidifications were appearing in it !