Chapter IV

 

 

Nadir waited impatiently for the moment that ought to bring Ormasis back to him, Having arrived at the rendezvous first, he walked around the library, looking at the clock from time to time. Already anxious, the fear that he might not see his Philosopher again tormented him—but Ormasis appeared, and joy was reborn in Nadir’s heart.

“I don’t know, amiable stranger, what charm your person exudes, but the anxiety that I have just experienced persuades me that your company has become a portion of my happiness.”

“Your compliment is sincere, my dear Nadir, and yet it is still merely the effect of an illusion. Yes, motives of curiosity are what presently determine your friendship, but one day, I shall have other rights over your heart. Yesterday, after leaving you, I went to that opening in the earth that I mentioned to you. I judged by the heat of the vapors that there will soon be an explosion, and, in consequence, new openings in the masses of rocks. How glad I would be if I were able to find my metal there! I intend to continue my research after nightfall.”

“Why risk yourself thus?” replied Nadir. “What light can suffice to guide your steps in those abysses? Are your diamonds luminous enough?”

“No, my dear Nadir, I have no need of them. Those profound cavities are illuminated by continual flashes of lightning.”

“Is there not, besides,” Nadir continued, “the kind of fire that is called the central fire?”

“Words, words,” Ormasis put in. “There is only one species of fire in nature. First, I shall explain to you the truth of the great principle, regarding which there have been so many erroneous theories on your world.

“Your scholars have learned that fire exists in all the substances of Nature, but there are two questions that they have never had sufficient finesse to answer clearly.

“In the first place, is fire an element of another species than light, and ought one to believe that Nature has multiplied its operations in that regard?

“In the second place, why does movement develop the fire of substances? Why, for example, do two pieces of wood rubbed together produce fire?

“I shall reply to the second question first, because it will soon lead us to resolve the first.

“You are doubtless familiar with the experiments by which your scholars have demonstrated the laws of centrifugal force, and why, with equal force, one can throw a ball of lead further than a ball of cork. Observe, therefore, that the fire that exists in the atmosphere, as in all substances, being the lighter element, is less subject to the laws of centrifugal force than air and water are. Now, by rubbing any substance whatsoever, what is the result? The heavier elements, and, in consequence those most subject to the laws of centrifugal force, such as air and water, are displaced further from the bodies one rubs. Then the element of fire, which is lighter, becomes dominant, and more or less manifest therein, by virtue of the vivacity of friction that displaces a more or less considerable quantity of air and water. When the friction is continued for a long time, the parts of air and water that move away from the center of the body are reestablished there by atmospheric pressure.”

“Permit me to interrupt you, Ormasis. How, then, do all the effects of electricity depend, as I believe, on the same principle? I’ve thought about that. In fact, while carrying out experiments on electricity, the air driven away electrified bodies is quite sensible. It’s doubtless the same air that, being warmed by movement, and rebounding from a vase on which one has put dust or pieces of paper, lifts them up, drops them and occasions the agitation that seemed so surprising to me. It’s doubtless the same air that activates the clappers of an electric bell. It also follows from the same principle that when the atmosphere is charge with vapors, and is in consequence heavier, it requires more considerable centrifugal forces to draw away the portions of water that impede the development of the fire.

“That is, in fact, what experiment demonstrates, since one can scarcely develop electric fire when the weather is humid. What seems to me to be difficult to conceive, however, is that fire develops at the very instant when I move my hand closer—or any other substance, whether it is a chain or an electrically conductive tube. What still surprises me is the shock I receive, and that a hundred other people receive at the same time. Where do these effects come from?”

“I shall satisfy your curiosity,” Ormasis said. “First, observe that when anybody whatsoever is moved closer to the body of electricity, fire is more concentrated in the space where the two bodies have moved closer. It is, therefore, within that space that fire has to develop further, and, still by reason of that principle, the more the fire within the body is compressed, the more active it becomes. It is also for that reason that the harder bodies one moves closer to the electrical conductor are those that develop a greater proportion of fire, and the spark that escapes is indeed more vivid. As for electric shocks, they are no longer surprising, in view of what I shall explain to you.

“Fire is nothing but agitated light. When light has little motion, it illuminates without any sensible effect, but when it experiences an accelerated motion, the first effect of that element is the same as that of the other elements put in motion. It strikes the bodies that are close to it, and eventually, be reason of its subtlety, it penetrates them. When that percussion is repeated, it occasions the division of bodies, and these bodies, in dividing, decompose by the separation of their fractions of the bodies that are approaching them. This is what is called ‘burning,’ or ‘combustion.’ The easier these bodies are to divide, the more they are affected by that percussion; that is why essential oils, resins and wood are much more promptly decomposed by that percussion than stones and metals.

“The electric fire that develops on a body is, therefore, the primary effect of agitated light, and that effect can be compared to the effect of other elements that are agitated; but one observes that the activity of the course of the element compensates for the lightness of its mass, and supplies a percussion much more lively than the other elements provide, in spite of their greater weight. That subtle percussion can strike a hundred people simultaneously, in the same way that when a hundred ivory billiard balls in contact, scarcely has percussion been applied to the first, than it is immediately experienced by the last. When, while making an experiment with electricity, the friction is increased, the forcefully-agitated light carries portions of matter away with it, whose fragments divide or burn the objects that are moved closer to it.”

“I understand now,” Nadir replied, “and I see clearly that the air and water in the atmosphere, which exert a marked pressure on all the bodies of Nature, can be separated from a body by movement, and the element of fire, which is the least subject to the laws of centrifugal force, then becomes dominant in the same space, from which a quantity of air and water have been separated, and consequently develops there, and produces a more-or-less lively percussion by virtue of more-or-less powerful friction—but I glimpse a consequence of these principles that astonishes me greatly. Is it possible that there would no longer be any heat or fire if matter ceased to be in motion? Is it possible that the sun, that immense mass of light, would provide us with hardly any light at all if our globe ceased to be in motion?”

“Yes, Nadir, be certain of that verity. It is only the movement of the terrestrial corpuscles with which the air of your atmosphere is filled that accelerates the agitation of the light, in the form that we call fire. Can you not see that on those high mountains, where the corpuscles of earthen matter are less active, because they are not reverberating as in the valleys, that there is only a faint percussion—which is to say, a faint heat. Can you not see that the sun can scarcely divide the snow and ice there, although those terrains have a more considerable innate rotational movement by virtue of their greater distance from the center of the earthy?

“Do not be more surprised, therefore, that water rarefied by heat condenses when it rises to a certain height and falls as rain. If the sun were a mass of fire, how could you explain that condensation of water, that rapid formation of snow and hail? It would result necessarily that the higher the water rose up, the more rarefied it would become. It would never fall back to earth as rain, there would never be clouds, and the molecules of matter increasingly attenuated by the heat would continue rising indefinitely into the superior region by reason of the specific weights with whose laws you are familiar.10 The effects of that electric fire named thunder would not be dangerous, since there would be no point of condensed matter there, whose fall and bursts cause such terrible explosions. Nights would not be sufficient intervals of time for all those condensations to be able to come into play. Besides which, it would result that rain, hail and thunder would only fall, so to speak, at night, and the portion of your globe that is illuminated by the sun for six months at a time would have been reduced to ashes.

“Notice too the effects of what you call apogee and perigee. You can see that the season in which the sun is furthest away from you is precisely the season in which you experience more heat. Why? Because the rays of light remain on your hemisphere for a longer time. If the sun were a mass of fire, that mass of fire being closer to the Earth in winter than in summer, at least agree that there would be moments, in the days of winter, when the sun would warm more than in summer; for remember that the rays of fire should not be assimilated to other heavy bodies, whose fall is more or less serious by virtue of the straight or oblique line that they might describe. Suspend a ball of red-hot iron from a brass wire and present a thermometer to it at the same distances in perpendicular and oblique lines, and you will see that the heat there will be exactly equal. Here, Nadir, are sensible principles; you will conceive them more easily than the terms ‘inferior air’ and ‘superior air,’ with which some men have cradled your ignorance.”