42 THE WORLD MACHINE 



rugosities ; he will find that, reduced to an object he may 

 hold in his hand, the earth would be smoother than any billiard 

 ball can be made. But the atmosphere, the air which this 

 bacillus must have to breathe ? for breathe like us he must. 

 The layer of atmosphere in which man may exist bears the same 

 relation to the earth as a thin sheet of paper would, pasted 

 down upon such a wheel. Probably every fly-wheel carries on 

 its surface a very thin layer of air roughly, though very much 

 thinner, corresponding to the earth's atmosphere. 



What now might be the thoughts and sensations of this 

 micro-man, this bacillus on the wheel ? What idea may he 

 gain of his world ? 



Of course he has not the slightest idea that the wheel moves. 

 It is to him very solid and very vast. He can gain little idea 

 of its extent. It will take thousands of* generations of bacilli 

 even to venture on a guess as to its shape. Perhaps no thought 

 can come to him more absurd than the idea that it is round, 

 that the great plains and regions of high mountains which he 

 traverses with infinite difficulty are the surface of a curve. 

 Until he learns to lift a sail before the winds, he can get such 

 a little way, anywhere. For aught he can see the thing has 

 no end. 



He is inquisitive, this micro-man, curious to the last 

 degree ; he loves to explore. But it is all so difficult, and he 

 has so little time. 



A single electric globe gives him all the light he has, and 

 for some curious reason it goes curving around the walls of the 

 room, then disappears, to come back on the other side, leaving 

 him half the time in the dark. Moreover, it does not describe 

 the same circle across the ceiling all the time, but its path 

 moves up and down, with the apparent effect of his being most 

 uncomfortably cold when it is down and beastly hot when 

 it is high. 



Puzzling over this foolish arrangement, he notes that this 

 wobble has a seeming regularity ; and using the alternate 

 appearances and disappearances of his luminary as a unit to 

 count with, finds that through about two hundred light and 

 dark times he is warm and things will grow, and then for about 

 two hundred more life is rather dull. Finally, observing the 

 thing carefully through a great many wobbles, he concludes 

 that there are very close to 365 alternations from the lowest 



