MAN’S THEATER OF ACTION 
independent of life processes! which exists in free state and 
considerable quantity at the earth’s usual temperature. A 
small change of temperature would congeal or vaporize 
this indispensable liquid. A fall of only ten per cent in the 
temperature of the globe would drive the higher forms of 
life to the tropics. Again, miles high above the earth ex- 
ists that form of oxygen which is called ozone. There is so 
little of it that if brought to the earth’s surface it would 
make a gaseous layer only a little thicker than the cover of 
this book. Yet if this trifling constituent of our atmos- 
phere should be destroyed, probably blindness and death 
to humanity would ensue, owing to the burning chemical. 
action of extreme ultra-violet rays of the sun which ozone 
cuts off. 
The materials of which the universe is composed seem 
to be common to all parts of it. In the sun and all the 
stars are found, by observation, only those chemical 
elements, such as iron, hydrogen, oxygen, and others, which 
are familiar on our earth, and some of which go to make up 
man himself. These elements, wherever found, are composed 
of two constituents, and two only—the protons and the 
electrons, equal and opposite elementary charges of elec- 
tricity. On the other hand, harmonious to this unity, there 
_ are many examples of progressive gradation. These begin 
among the very atoms of the chemical elements. 
The keen discoverer who laid the groundwork of this 
knowledge of the atomic gradation was Henry Gwyn- 
Jeffreys Moseley. Born in 1887, he graduated at Oxford 
University and became lecturer in physics at the Uni- 
versity of Manchester, where he was associated with the 
eminent British Nobel prize winner, Sir Ernest Ruther- 
ford. By a brilliant series of highly delicate and original 
experiments, Moseley demonstrated the step-by-step re- 
lation in the X-ray spectra of the elements, now known as 
Moseley’s law. So epoch-making was this discovery that 
he was specially invited to lecture upon it in Australia at 
1 Gasoline, the oils, the alcohols, etc., are in nature all products of life processes. 
[5] 
