176 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
part of the electrons form a central nucleus about which gyrate the 
remaining electrons at tremendous speeds, and in characteristic orbits. 
The nucleus is like the sun, controlling its family of planets— 
electrons. So we may say that astronomy begins within the atoms. 
As all things are made of atoms, and all atoms are made of 
electric charges, we see that what we call matter, the substance of 
the earth, the stars, and all that in them is, is after all electricity. 
Consider a hydrogen atom. It is just one proton with one 
electron revolving about it, comparable to the earth with its one 
moon. The two units of electricity attract one another very power- 
fully because they are so very close together. If the motion that 
holds them apart could be stopped, the electron would fall in upon 
the proton. What would result? Apparently annihilation. Simi- 
larly, all of the chemical atoms—that is, the whole universe—if de- 
prived of all the inner atomic motions, would apparently be an- 
nihilated. In place of the universe would be a void. If the process 
were reversed, a void, separated into positive and negative unit 
electrical charges, and endowed with immense energy of motions in 
characteristic orbits, would become a universe. That would be the 
primary step in evolution itself. 
3. How did that primary step take place? Science does not pre- 
tend to know. 
The Hebrew scripture says: “In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. * * * And God 
said, Let there be light: and there was light.” 
In this there is nothing which contradicts what science has dis- 
closed. 
The Zuni Indians had also an account of creation: 
Awonawilona, the Maker and Container of all, existed before the 
beginning of time in the darkness which knew no beginning. Then 
he projected his thinking into the void of night and evolved fogs 
of increase—mists potent with growth. He took upon himself the 
form and person of the Sun, the Father of men, who thus came to 
be, and by whose light and brightening the cloud mists became 
thickened with water, and thus was made the world-holding sea. 
By the heat of his rays there was formed thereon green scums, which 
increasing apace, became “The Four-fold containing Mother— 
earth,” and the “All-containing Father—sky,” parents of all that is. 
4. Our study of stellar evolution can not begin at the beginning. 
Existing processes do not help us to form a conception of how the 
void became the atoms. We have to assume that the atoms in tre- 
mendous numbers came into being in some unknown way. That is 
our starting point. 
