er lines of the lab. Now, running the
handling machine into position, he quickly hoisted the bent and twisted
plate to the poles of the magnet, with the aid of the derrick. Then
backing the handling machine out of the way, he returned briskly to his
waiting associates.

"Now we'll see what we will see!" With a confident smile Arcot switched
on the current of the big magnet. At once a terrific magnetic flux was
set up through the light-metal. He took the little compressed-air saw,
and applied it to the crystal plate. The smooth hiss of the air deepened
to a harsh whine as the load came on it, then the saw made contact with
the refractory plate.

Unbelievingly Wade saw the little diamond-edge saw bite its way slowly
but steadily into the plate. In a moment it had cut off a little corner
of the light-matter, and this fell with a heavy thud to the magnet pole,
drawn down by the attraction of the magnet and by gravity.

Shutting off the magnet, Arcot picked up a pair of pliers and gripped
the little fragment.

"Whew--light-metal certainly isn't light metal! I'll bet this little
scrap weights ten pounds! We'll have to reduce it considerably before we
can use it. But that shouldn't be too difficult."

By using the magnet and several large diamond faceplates they were able
to work the tough material down to a thin sheet; then with a heavy
press, they cut some very small fragments, and with these, determined
the specific gravity.

"Arcot," Wade asked finally, "just how does the magnet make that stuff
tractable? I'm not physicist enough to figure out what takes place
inside the material."

"Magnetism worked as it did," Arcot explained, "because in this
light-matter every photon is affected by the magnetism, and every photon
is given a new motion. That stuff can be made to go with the speed of
light, you know. It's the only solid that could be so affected. This
stuff should be able, with the aid of a molecular motion beam, which
will make all the photons move in parallel paths, to move at the full
speed of each photon--186,000 miles a second. The tremendous speed of
these individual photons is what makes the material so hard. Their
kinetic impulse is rather considerable! It's the kinetic blow that the
molecules of a metal give that keeps other metal from penetrating it.
This simply gives such powerful impulse that even diamonds wouldn't cut
it.

"You know that an iron saw will cut platinum readily, yet if both are
heate