course proceeded. At his concluding discussion it was crowded

right up to the ceiling at the back, and there people were

standing, standing without any sense of fatigue, so fascinating

did they find his suggestions. One youngster in particular, a

chuckle-headed, scrub-haired lad from the Highlands, sat hugging

his knee with great sand-red hands and drinking in every word,

eyes aglow, cheeks flushed, and ears burning.

'And so,' said the professor, 'wesee that this Radium, which

seemed at first a fantastic exception, a mad inversion of all

that was most established and fundamental in the constitution of

matter, isreally at one with therest of the elements. It does

noticeably and forcibly what probably all the other elements are

doing with an imperceptible slowness. It is like the single

voice crying aloud that betrays the silent breathing multitude in

the darkness. Radium is an element that is breaking up and flying

to pieces. But perhaps all elements are doing that at less

perceptible rates. Uranium certainly is; thorium-the stuff of

this incandescent gas mantle-certainly is; actinium. Ifeel

that we are but beginning the list. And weknow now that the

atom, that once wethought hard and impenetrable, and indivisible

and final and-lifeless-lifeless, isreally a reservoir of

immense energy. That is the most wonderful thing about all this

work. A little while ago wethought of the atoms as wethought

of bricks, as solid building material, as substantial matter, as

unit masses of lifeless stuff, and behold! these bricks are

<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>