296 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



ingot under the second application of the pressure re- 

 tained its solidity just as it was immediately prior to the 

 moment of unclamping, then all the energy expended in 

 the second act, though by premiss precisely the same as 

 in the first, would be utterly lost, not being compensated 

 by any increase of temperature whatsoever in the lead. 

 Shall we then precipitately conclude that, given a particu- 

 lar mass of lead that has once before been liquefied by a 

 certain intensity of pressure, it can never again be lique- 

 fied save by a higher pressure than other lead samples 

 would require; resulting at the end of a series of such 

 steps in a specimen of the metal altogether impervious 

 to compression! Such a conclusion cannot be true, 

 surely, for it would be tantamount to saying that gold is 

 not always gold, lead not always lead, nor iron always 

 iron. 



When Proctor, therefore, speaks of a cubical iron 

 mountain being able to liquefy its base, and when the 

 world of science looks approvingly on and applauds that 

 statement (which it does), they open our way to a choice 

 of these two deductions; (1) that it is the common trait 

 of all cubical iron mountains twenty miles high to liquefy 

 their bases, or (2) that some do but others do not, de- 

 pending on whether they have ever gone through the per- 

 formance before. Of these, the Conservationists through- 

 out their ratiocinations show that they unqualifiedly 

 adopt the second as a kind of basic principle, and accord- 

 ingly they are looking forward to the day when all of 

 Jupiter's mountains of iron, and of lead, and of other ma- 

 terials will have learned not to liquefy their bases and to 

 stay chill against all pressures. 



To my mind the thing could not be more obvious than 

 it is, that a mountain of iron which by its pressure once 

 succeeds in liquefying its base will hold that base in a 

 state of liquefaction indefinitely. When lead assumes 

 the fluid form in the hydraulic press, it does so simply 

 because that is the natural condition for it to take on 

 when under that amount of stress. When either iron 

 or lead is in the fluid state, it means they are hot because 

 Nature has ordained that fluid iron, or fluid lead, and a 



