ts perfection, it must have been made by One stronger, finer, and
wiser than we are.

MOBILITY OF SEEMING SOLIDS

When a human breath, or the white jet of a steam whistle, or the black
cough of a locomotive smokestack is projected into the air it is easy
to see that the air is mobile. Its particles easily roll over one
another in voluminously infolding wreaths. The same is seen in water.
The crest of a wave falls over a portion of air, imprisoning it for a
moment, and the mingled air and water of different densities prevent
the light of the sun or sky from going straight down into the black
depths and being lost, but by being reflected and turned back it shows
like beautiful white lace, constantly created and dissolved with a
thousandfold more beauty than any that ever came from human hands. All
the three shifting elements of the swift creations are mobile. This
seems to be the case because these elements are not solid. The
particles have plenty of room to play about each other, to execute mazy
dances and minuets with vastly more space than substance.

Extend the thought a little. Things that seem to us most solid are
equally mobile. An iron wire seems solid. It is so; some parts much
more so than others. The surface that has been in closest contact with
the die as the wire was drawn through, reducing its size by one half,
perhaps, is vastly more dense than the inner parts that have not been
so condensed. File away one tenth of a wire, taking it all from the
surface, and you weaken the tensile strength of the wire one half.

But, dense and solid as this iron is, its particles are as mobile
within certain limits as the particles of air. An electric message
sent through a mile of wire is not anything transmitted; matter is not
transferred, but the particles are set to dancing in wavy motion from
end to end. Particles are leaping within ordered limits and according
to regular laws as really as the clouds swirl and the air trembles into
song through the throat of a singer. When a wire is made sensitive by
electricity the breath of a child can make it vibrate from end to end,
ensouled with the child's laughter or fancies. Nay, more, and far more
wonderful, the wire will be sensitive to the number of vibrations of a
certain note of music, and no receiver at the other end will gather up
its sensitive tremblings unless it is pitched to the keynote of the
vibrations sent. In this way eight sets of vibrati