MARY. Now, first of all, what do you mean by "bricks"?--Are the
smallest particles of minerals all of some accurate shape, like
bricks?
L. I do not know. Miss Mary; I do not even know if anybody knows.
The smallest atoms which are visibly and practically put together
to make large crystals, may better be described as "limited in
fixed directions" than as "of fixed forms." But I can tell you
nothing clear about ultimate atoms: you will find the idea of
little bricks, or, perhaps, of little spheres, available for all
the uses you will have to put it to.
MARY. Well, it's very provoking; one seems always to be stopped
just when one is coming to the very thing one wants to know.
L. No, Mary, for we should not wish to know anything but what is
easily and assuredly knowable. There's no end to it. If I could
show you, or myself, a group of ultimate atoms, quite clearly, in
this magnifying glass, we should both be presently vexed, because
we could not break them in two pieces, and see their insides.
MARY. Well then, next, what do you mean by the flying of the
bricks? What is it the atoms do, that is like flying?
L. When they are dissolved, or uncrystallized, they are really
separated from each other, like a swarm of gnats in the air, or
like a shoal of fish in the sea;--generally at about equal
distances. In currents of solutions, or at different depths of
them, one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms than
another; but on the whole, you may think of them as equidistant,
like the spots in the print of your gown. If they are separated by
force of heat only, the substance is said to be melted; if they
are separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by
water, they are said to be "dissolved." Note this distinction
carefully, all of you.
DORA. I will be very particular. When next you tell me there isn't
sugar enough in your tea, I will say, "It is not yet dissolved,
sir."
L. I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora; and that's the
present parliament, if the members get too saucy.
(DORA folds her hands and casts down her eyes.)
L. (proceeds in state). Now, Miss Mary, you know already, I
believe, that nearly everything will melt, under a sufficient
heat, like wax. Limestone melts (under pressure); sand melts;
granite melts; the lava of a volcano is a mixed mass of many kinds
of rocks, melted: and any melted substance nearly always, if not
always, crystallizes as it cools; the more slowly the more
perfectly. Water melts at what we call the freezing, but might
just as wisely, though not as conveniently, call the melting,
point; and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all
known crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and will
crystallize, if you let it cool slowly enough, in stars, much like
snow. Gold needs more heat to melt it, but crystallizes also
exquisitely, as I will presently show you. Arsenic and sulphur
crystallize from their vapors. Now in any of these cases, either
of melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies, the particles are
usually separated from each other, either by heat, or by an
intermediate substance; and in crystallizing they are both brought
nearer to each other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as
possible: the essential part of the business being not the
bringing together, but the packing. Who packed your trunk for you,
last holidays, Isabel?
ISABEL. Lily does, always.
L. And how much can you allow for Lily's good packing, in guessing
what will go into the trunk?
ISABEL. Oh! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always
gets everything in.
LILY. Ah! but, Isey, if you only knew what a time it takes! and
since you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't
do anything with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.
L. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew what a time it
takes; and I wish any of us knew what a time crystallization
takes, for that is consummately fine packing. The particles of the
rock are thrown down, just as Isabel brings her things--in a heap;
and innumerable Lilies, not of the valley, but of the rock, come
to pack them. But it takes such a time!
However, the best--out and out the best--way of understanding the
thing, is to crystallize yourselves.
THE AUDIENCE. Ourselves!
L. Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly on the
schoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground.
You can play at crystallization there as much as you please.
KATHLEEN and JESSIE. Oh! how?--how?
L. First, you must put yourselves together, as close as you can,
in the middle of the grass, and form, for first practice, any
figure you like.
JESSIE. Any dancing figure, do you mean?
L. No; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you
like, standing close together. You had better outline it first on
the turf, with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly
drawn; then get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side,
till you are all quite in it, and no empty space left.
DORA. Crinoline and all?
L. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline
surface, unless you pin it in; and then you may make a polished
crystal of yourselves.
LILY. Oh, we'll pin it in--we'll pin it in!
L. Then, when you are all in the figure, let every one note her
place, and who is next her on each side; and let the outsiders
count how many places they stand from the corners.
KATHLEEN. Yes, yes,--and then?
L. Then you must scatter all over the playground--right over it
from side to side, and end to end; and put yourselves all at equal
distances from each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it
very accurately, but so as to be nearly equidistant; not less than
about three yards apart from each other, on every side.
JESSIE. We can easily cut pieces of string of equal length, to
hold. And then? L. Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, at
the same rate, towards the outlined figure in the middle. You had
better sing as you walk; that will keep you in good time. And as
you close in towards it, let each take her place, and the next
comers fit themselves in beside the first ones, till you are all
in the figure again.
KATHLEEN. Oh! how we shall run against each other. What fun it
will be!
L. No, no, Miss Katie; I can't allow any running against each
other. The atoms never do that, whatever human creatures do. You
must all know your places, and find your way to them without
jostling.
LILY. But how ever shall we do that?
ISABEL. Mustn't the ones in the middle be the nearest, and the
outside ones farther off--when we go away to scatter, I mean?
L. Yes; you must be very careful to keep your order; you will soon
find out how to do it; it is only like soldiers forming square,
except that each must stand still in her place as she reaches it,
and the others come round her; and you will have much more
complicated figures, afterwards, to form, than squares.
ISABEL. I'll put a stone at my place: then I shall know it.
L. You might each nail a bit of paper to the turf, at your place,
with your name upon it: but it would be of no use, for if you
don't know your places, you will make a fine piece of business of
it, while you are looking for your names. And, Isabel, if with a
little head, and eyes, and a brain (all of them very good and
serviceable of their kind, as such things go), you think you
cannot know your place without a stone at it, after examining it
well,--how do you think each atom knows its place, when it never
was there before, and there's no stone at it?
ISABEL. But does every atom know its place?