24 



DUST. 



By R. p. Joyce. 



Dust, like dirt, has been described as matter in the wrong 

 place. Yet when on the threshold of the 20th century the sci- 

 entific record of the 19th comes to be written, not the least of its 

 achievements will appear to be the discovery of the essential 

 part that this derided form, or deformity, of matter plays in the 

 economy of the universe. Not our atmosphere only but inter- 

 stellar space also seems to be traversed by masses of dust of 

 more or less impalpable rineness, which,like light, ma\' be called 

 an article of commerce among the spheres. Science is finding 

 out more and more that all systems with their members are not 

 isolated and independent, but related and interdependent, 

 reaching out into the infinite. The earth in its course round the 

 sun and in the course in which the sun moves round some vaster 

 circumference, gathers daily tons of meteoric matter mostly in 

 the form of dust. This dust is found on the perpetual snow of 

 mountains, in the ocean ooze and in the motes of the sunbeam. 

 Even vegetation owes something to this insensilile rain of mete- 

 oric particles, «o that the bread we eat contains within it matter 

 which may have voyaged for countless centuries of time through 

 illimitable space. Thus to nourish our bodies the remote.-it 

 realms of the universe may have been laid under contribution, 

 and everyone here assimilated particles of matter borne to our 

 earth by shooting stars and meteoric dust. Again and again we 

 are reminded that one touch of nature not only makes the whole 

 world kin but binds the universe in intimate association, In 

 this fact Wordsworth's spiritual idea finds its materialistic com- 

 plement — 



'' The soul that rises with us, our life star. 



Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar." 



The uses and abuses of dust have been treated from a varie- 

 ty of points of view, so that the literature has grown to be quite 

 considerable. That venerable art philosopher, Kuskin,has given 

 us the "Ethics of the Dust" in a course of inimitable lectures. 

 Who can forget his analysis and parable of an ounce of mud 

 (dust j>aste) taken from the footpath of an English manufactur- 



