STATE llORTICULTUUAL SUCIETY. loo 



without the help of skids, or bridges, or fogs, or auras, wherever matter 

 exists, or across any vacuum whatever ; while still it is impossible that 

 there should be any manifestation of force where there is no matter, for 

 force becomes manifested through form and motion alone. 



If any doctrine of physics is settled by the facts, it would seem to be 

 this : That matter, phenomenal in either form or motion, can nowhere 

 exist where force is not present to mold and move it ; and force of any 

 kind (an nowhere exist where matter is not present to manifest it ; it 

 needs notliing to help it move, for we have no proof that it ever moves 

 or is capable of motion in itself. It is only capable of exciting or pro- 

 ducing motion in matter, which is alone capable of motion ; force itself 

 has no thinkable motion or form, while it causes or excites to motion and 

 form in all other things. The motions and forms we see ; the exciting 

 force we never see — very much as in the mortal sphere of being we, in 

 like manner, see the man and hear his words, but never see nor hear the 

 inspiring soul that causes them. 



Among the manifested modes of force that have more or less to do 

 with the seasons and the weather, we may mention what we call gravity, 

 whose main function it is to keep lighter things — like vapors, gases and 

 clouds — on top, and the heavier things — like water, rain, hail and snow 

 — at the bottom ; and it must be confessed that this old gentleman 

 attends to his various duties, day and night, with the utmost care, steadi- 

 ness, serenit}- and gravity. 



Then we have a most gay, cheerful, and joyous little miss whom we 

 call Light, who comes tripping into our windows to wake us up betimes 

 every morning, paints, bedecks, festoons, and bespangles the whole earth 

 with flowers in summer and icicles in winter, marking clearly the periods 

 of night and day, and then is off till the next morning, sometimes blushing 

 and sometimes weeping at eventide over the joys of the day she leaves 

 behind her. 



Next comes the great strategist — the Moltke of the skies — who plans 

 out all its great campaigns, drauglits all the vapors from the ocean's 

 surface, and leads them upward to dut)- in higher spheres, marks down 

 the differences between day and night ; still again between summer and 

 winter, pole and equator, keeps all the winds, and clouds, and vapors 

 and fogs of earth and skies peri)etually marshaled and pressing onward 

 toward the actual breach in the wall, the points of lowest pressure, 

 whether perpetually generated by the sun at the equator, or produced by 

 temporary exhaustion elsewhere. This great strategist of the skies, the 

 earth, the ocean, and the air, we call "General Heat." Whoever, in 

 calm or storm, by sea or land, in sunshine or in rain, by night or by day, 

 in the end outwits or outgenerals him will find their hands full. 



Next we have what rough old soldiers would call a " hell of a fellow," 

 a renowed cavalry rider and crusader, who can ride round the globe in 

 less than no time, and gleam aiul Hash, and tear and rend, antl thunder 

 and lighten, and get up more (lesi)erate cavalry charges here and there, 

 in the sha]je of thunder storms, hail storms, snow storms, cyclones, hur- 



