he way they face, the poses they assume, the speed of their
gyrations, the partners they exchange, determine the kinds of phenomena
we are dealing with.

There is a striking analogy between the letters of our alphabet and
their relation to the language of the vast volume of printed books, and
the eighty or more primary elements and their relation to the vast
universe of material things. The analogy may not be in all respects a
strictly true one, but it is an illuminating one. Our twenty-six letters
combined and repeated in different orders give us the many thousand
words our language possesses, and these words combined and repeated in
different orders give us the vast body of printed books in our
libraries. The ultimate parts--the atoms and molecules of all
literature, so to speak--are the letters of the alphabet. How often by
changing a letter in a word, by reversing their order, or by
substituting one letter for another, we get a word of an entirely
different meaning, as in umpire and empire, petrifaction and
putrefaction, malt and salt, tool and fool. And by changing the order of
the words in a sentence we express all the infinite variety of ideas and
meanings that the books of the world hold.

The eighty or more primordial elements are Nature's alphabet with which
she writes her "infinite book of secrecy." Science shows pretty
conclusively that the character of the different substances, their
diverse qualities and properties, depend upon the order in which the
atoms and molecules are combined. Change the order in which the
molecules of the carbon and oxygen are combined in alcohol, and we get
ether--the chemical formula remaining the same. Or take ordinary spirits
of wine and add four more atoms of carbon to the carbon molecules, and
we have the poison, carbolic acid. Pure alcohol is turned into a deadly
poison by taking from it one atom of carbon and two of hydrogen. With
the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, by combining them in
different proportions and in different orders, Nature produces such
diverse bodies as acetic acid, alcohol, sugar, starch, animal fats,
vegetable oils, glycerine, and the like. So with the long list of
hydrocarbons--gaseous, liquid, and solid--called paraffins, that are
obtained from petroleum and that are all composed of hydrogen and
carbon, but with a different number of atoms of each, like a different
number of a's or b's or c's in a word.

What an enormous number of bodies Natu