REV. MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS 251 



and what is the sun that heats it? Answering for my- 

 self, I say that they are both matter. I fill a glass with 

 the sea- water and expose it on the deck of the vessel; 

 after some time the liquid has all disappeared, and left 

 a solid residue of salt in the glass behind. We have mo- 

 bility, invisibility apparent annihilation. In virtue of 



The glad and secret aid 



The sun unto the ocean paid, 



the water has taken to itself wings and flown off as vapor. 

 From the whole surface of the Caribbean Sea such vapor 

 is rising: and now we must follow it not upon our legs, 

 however, nor in a ship, nor even in a balloon, but by the 

 mind's eye in other words, by that power of Yorstellung 

 which Mr. Martineau knows so well, and which he so 

 justly scorns when it indulges in loose practices. 



Compounding, then, the northward motion of the vapor 

 with the earth's axial rotation, we track our fugitive 

 through the higher atmospheric regions, obliquely across 

 the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe, and on to our 

 familiar Alps. Here another wonderful metamorphosis 

 occurs. Floating on the cold calm air, and in presence 

 of the cold firmament, the vapor condenses, not only - to 

 particles of water, but to particles of crystalline water. 

 These coalesce to stars of snow, which fall upon the moun- 

 tains in forms so exquisite that, when first seen, they 

 never fail to excite rapture. As to beauty, indeed, they 

 put the work of the lapidary to shame, while as to accu- 

 racy they render concrete the abstractions of the geom- 

 eter. Are these crystals "matter"? Without presuming 

 to dogmatize, I answer for myself in the affirmative. 



Still, a formative power has obviously here come into 



