Chapter XXI

 

 

Nadir admired these interesting phenomena with an inexpressible sensation.

“You see,” Ormasis continued, that acid of sulfur is falling into the phlogiston of that ferruginous earth; the movement of the phlogiston is increasing, and it is increased even further by the evaporation of aqueous parts. Vigorously agitated light develops in masses of earth; its rapid percussion dilates air urgently, and causes explosions all the more powerful when they find more resistance.”

Scarcely had Ormasis stopped speaking than a frightful thunder shook the vaults of the caverns; a torrent of fire inundated the vast abysses. Nadir considered with a fearful eye the sparkling waves that were rolling and multiplying impetuously. Then he saw, to his astonishment, masses of water following the course of the waves of flame at high speed and climbing with them over the highest paths of the subterranean mountains.

“You are looking,” Ormasis said to him, “at the effects of a volcano, the eruption of which has occurred in the sea. You can see the waters of the Ocean rapidly climbing those steep slopes. You’re familiar with the common experiment by which water is caused to rise in an inverted glass after having put fire in the glass to rarefy the air, rendering it lighter and consequently reducing its pressure. Well, my dear Nadir, what is presented to your eyes here is merely the result of the same principles.

“Observe at present that the water, by virtue of the rapidity of its flow, is lifting with it an infinity of seashells and other productions of the sea. Look at those pieces of wood, the sad debris of shipwrecks; look at that iron anchor attached to one of the pieces of wood, and which, dragged by the torrent, is climbing the steep slope with it. In thirty years that anchor will be found in the earth, a hundred leagues from the sea, and someone will maintain that the sea covered that portion of the land a thousand years ago, as if iron, which is the metal most prompt to decompose in the earth, could have subsisted there for a thousand years in that form.

“Those seashells will be discovered, and those fish, having become fossils—new subjects of error, for the belief that the sea covered the entire surface of this land. People will not reflect that, with the aid of fire, sea water can rise up even into the highest mountains. They will take extravagance to the point of imagining that the entire earth was covered with water before the formation of humans, and that those same humans had originally been marine animals; that the waters of the seas gradually diminished; that those marine humans then preferred the earth to the first element in which they had been born, and multiplied their species there by preference; that the waters of the sea are still diminishing; that the atmosphere is a gourmand what continuously takes water without restoring it, and mocks the laws of gravity; that that gourmand will swallow all the waters on your globe and will finally transform it into a veritable sun.28 And what will be the proof of all these miracles? That oyster shells and other seashells have been found in mountains far from the sea.

“Another proof is that marine humans have been seen who do not care, in truth, like their distant ancestors to inhabit the earth, and who no longer, like them, have the faculty of articulating sounds; but there are nevertheless humans that have been seen swimming in the sea, that have been captured; and observe that that species of humans is very volatile, for none are ever conserved, in spite of the familiar means of preserving cadavers from putrefaction. Agree, my friend, that an author who lets himself be carried away by the flight of his imagination is soon precipitated into the chaos of error.”

“Indeed,” replied Nadir, “several of our scientists have criticized that theory. They have thought, rightly, that the sea always gains on one coast what it loses on another, and it even seems probable that in its displacements it travels over almost the same terrain, since cities that have sunk are sometimes discovered a few centuries later. Yes, I sense increasingly that the theory of land-emergences is unsustainable. I think that not a single drop of water is lost from our globe, and that water rises in vapors and condensed by the cold at a certain height in our atmosphere necessarily falls back on to the earth without any loss. Hence its filtration through the earth, the origin of torrents, rivers, streams, the nutrition and growth of vegetation.

“I sense that it is reasonable to compare the universal circulation of waters with what occurs in an alembic, but I understand that comparison better since you have demonstrated to me the existence of a refrigerant, for that of an ardent furnace, at the top of an alembic, such as the sun is supposed to be, appears to me to be contradictory to the effects of such an operation. With regard to the nutrition and growth of vegetation, I’m beginning to conceive...”

“Just a moment,” Ormasis interrupted. “There are no more bursts of fire to fear; let’s go through that opening now. You can see hardly any water, and it appears that only a little is flowing back. Have no fear, though; we’re following the safest path.”

Immediately, Ormasis crawled through the hole formed in the rocks. Nadir followed him. They went along a rather high ledge, walking with the greatest ease.

“You can imagine,” said Ormasis, “that I have orientated myself here more than once with a compass. The Black Sea is to our left, but we are well below its bed. You may doubt that it is in that sea that the mouth of fire opens; we would then be in greater danger. The eruption must have taken place in the Gulf of Hormuz. You can understand that we are further from the waters of the Ocean here, by virtue of the spherical form on the earth; it is, therefore, by oblique paths that the fire raised up the water to our level and beyond. Don’t be surprised now if the waters, in flowing back, do not bring back all the productions that they drew away.”

“That’s what I can’t understand,” Nadir replied, “for water coming down certainly has more force than that which rises up, whatever rapidity the fire communicated to it.”

“My dear Nadir, that’s another question, but I’m content to cite a very simple experiment. If you roll a ball in such a way as to make it climb an inclined plane, do you not see that the ball, at the limit of its ascension, is, so to speak, momentarily at rest before rolling down. It is the same for the water that has to descend again after rising up. It is during that moment of rest that the heavy bodies it contains fall on to the earth and are not carried away, as they would be lower down when the water has resumed the rapid movement of its fall. It is for the same reason that the tide does not always take back what it had brought to the shore of the sea. It is too obvious for us to occupy ourselves with it further. Let us pass on to other matters. What did you want to say to me on the subject of the nutrition and growth of vegetation? I remember having interrupted you on that subject.”

“I was saying,” Nadir replied, “that I conceive, not the principal motor, but at least the mechanism of that growth. In fact, the vapors of the Earth contain highly-divided parts of earth, which are doubtless deposited on the seeds of vegetables, and it is because these parts of earth are highly-divided that they arrange themselves around each seed, relative to the different forms. But my dear Philosopher, since the most limpid water always contains earth, is it not rather portions of that same water that are transmuted in the ground. I’ve reflected on that. Yes, I maintain that the transmutation in question takes place. Entire trees have become very large, having had no other alimentary principle than water. Now, as one cannot suppose that there is such a large quantity of divided earth in the water, I believe that the water itself is transmuted into earth. Another, even more striking, proof is that our scientists have distilled the same water a hundred times over, and at each distillation there is always an earthen sediment, and that proof is incontrovertible.”

“Incontrovertible, my dear Nadir—and yet here are a few replies. In a moderately heated apartment one fills a large glass with water, making sure that the external surface of the glass is very clean and free of all humidity. One throws sal ammoniac into that water. Immediately, the surface of the glass, which was quite dry, is charged with a considerable dew. You know that that effect is due to the coolness communicated to the glass, which condenses the parts of water with which the atmospheric air is filled. Eventually, these drops of water evaporate as the glass warms up; then the external surface of the glass is tarnished. The air and water of the atmosphere are, therefore, charged with an infinity of earthen molecules, equally susceptible to condense.

“Now, if a solid surface such as that of the glass can be charged with such a large quantity of earthen parts, imagine how many of them a liquid surface would retain. And indeed, you will observe that water evaporated in the open air leaves a much more considerable sediment than the same water distilled in sealed vessels. After these observations, you will no longer believe that water is transmuted into earth because that water can make a tree grow. You will no longer be astonished that, in distilling the water many times, it still produces an earthen residue, since it is sufficient that every time, when the vessels are opened, the surface of the water receives the impression of a current of air, which communicates its earthen molecules to it. It is also probable, as one of your scientists has observed, that the continuous percussion of the boiling water divides a few portions of the glass containing it, without affecting its polish, by virtue of the gentleness of the friction.”

“I can see,” Nadir replied, “that you do not believe in the transmutation of the elements; you therefore do not think that rays of light can form masses of stone, and that those stones can then be transformed into light, although one of our illustrious scientists has voiced that opinion.”29

“My dear Nadir, I do not believe what I cannot conceive. I see that the arrangement of the colors that form the spectrum is immutable. Now, given that there is no transmutation even in the rays, I cannot add faith to far more incomprehensible transmutations. One can, therefore, esteem a scientist without adopting all of his hypotheses. Besides which, a laborious man rightly permits himself a multiplicity of reflections, and it is sufficient for him to extract a single ray of enlightenment for one to testify gratitude toward him; it is, therefore, not scientists respectable by virtue of their work that I am attacking here. No, if I were susceptible to ill-humor of that sort, I would direct it at those singular individuals who, on reading a work, scarcely occupy themselves with experiments and ingenious reflections founded on sound physics, but determine to adopt a supposition with which the author has amused himself.

“These singular individuals therefore pose as a principle that there is only one sole matter in the universe. Agreed; however, that matter will always have four essentially distinct parts. Let us retract, if they wish, the name element, but the different sensations that light, water, air and earth cause them to experience will make them admit, however reluctantly, four principles. Let them be content, therefore, to examine the compounds resulting from the various mixtures of these principles, and they will have enough work to do, But if it is extravagant for a person to pretend to know the organic and constituent molecules of each of these principles, is it not even more extravagant to decide that these principle change their nature, and are transmuted into one another?

“I like the honest physicist who, induced into error by a mixture of air and water, imagines that air is nothing but rarefied water. However, he seeks to instruct himself. He heats an aeolipile full of water, from which it appears that only air is escaping, but on fitting a vessel that condenses those vapors, he recovers the same quantity of water therefrom. He carries out another experiment. He pumps air from the receptacle of a pneumatic machine, under which he has put a glass full of water. He sees the water boiling, by virtue of the air that it contains and the reduced pressure of the atmosphere, which causes it to rise within the glass. But he does not perceive any diminution of the water, not a single atom of water converted into air. He also observes that water penetrates bodies that air cannot penetrate: certain proof of the difference of form of the constituents of the two principles. Finally, he puts the damp cloths he has used in his experiments out to dry in the open air. A powerful wind is blowing, and the cloths are soon dry. Then he reflects that the great wind would not have dried the objects he has exposed to it so quickly if the great wind had only been a large quantity of water in movement; immediately he recognizes that his ideas were only errors and, renouncing any theoretical pretention, he adopts the existence of four essentially different elements or principles of matter, and although it is impossible for him to obtain them in the state of purity, he sees enough particularities that establish the differences of their species.”

“The observations that you make,” Nadir replied, “interest me greatly, but they do not convince me. In fact, reasoning inversely, ought one not to believe that everything is water, that everything can be converted into water, since all the bodies in Nature can be liquefied. No, nothing can prevent me from believing in that transmutation—or, rather, the perfect identity of the two elements of earth and water.”

Nadir was debating heatedly, and the inflamed air of the volcano had warmed him considerably. An ardent thirst was tormenting him. He informed the Philosopher of his condition.

Ormasis immediately offered him a handful of sand. “Here, my friend,” he said, “slake your thirst.”

Nadir, surprised, saw clearly that the sand, which required nine hundred degrees of heat to be fluid, was not water. Immediately, Ormasis took a hollow pebble and, collecting a few drops of petroleum oil that was oozing from a nearby mass of stone, he offered it to his friend.

Nadir understood immediately that a phlogisticated fluid, not becoming solid at the same degree of cold as water, was still not what he needed to appease his thirst. “I abjure my puerile reflections,” he said to Ormasis.

Ormasis then showed him a spring of clear water behind a rock. Nadir, as he slaked his thirst therein, agreed that if all the bodies in Nature were susceptible to become fluid at different degrees of heat, that difference in the degrees of heat was sufficient to indicate their different species, and, in consequence, the distinctive character of the elements composing them.