6 The Bible of Nature 



comes, in part at least, something else — namely, 

 that rare stuff called Helium, which Sir Norman 

 Lockyer found many years ago in the Sun, which 

 also occurs in warm springs and rare minerals. 

 One kind of radium ray is said to consist of streams 

 of little bodies, which travel at the rate of 20,000 

 miles a second, 40,000 times faster than a rifle bul- 

 let; another kind is said to consist of streams of 

 little bodies, darting forth at the prodigious rate 

 of 100,000 miles a second; another kind is said to 

 consist of pulses in the ether, which can penetrate 

 a foot of solid iron. In spite of all the energy it 

 gives off, radium is but slowly used up. It is 

 possibly being continually formed afresh in the 

 earth, perhaps from Uranium. A small quantity 

 diffused in the earth will suffice to compensate for 

 all the loss of heat by radiation; a fraction of one 

 per cent, in the sun would compensate for all its 

 immense loss of heat. Is this not "too wonderful 

 for us?" 



Power of Life. — We do not perhaps think much 

 about it, but the abundance of power in living 

 creatures is truly wonderful, just as wonderful as 

 radium. Call them engines — animate systems 

 which transform matter and energy — they are 

 more perfect than our best engines, the perfection 

 being measured by the relation between the energy 

 which enters them and the work they do. "Joule 

 pointed out that not only does an animal much 



