58 THE UNIVERSE 



battery at work. There you will see the atoms in 

 the solution flowing towards the negative pole and 

 depositing themselves in minute crystals upon the 

 metallic surface, if the negative pole is a metal, and 

 adhering with great pertinacity ; the metallic crystals 

 penetrate the crystalline surface of the substance to 

 be plated in minute arms filling up the infinitesimal 

 space, and the atoms in this process transfer their 

 atomic motion in line with the electric force, and 

 become arrested as in the primitive state when they 

 formed the crystalline foundations of primitive earth. 

 It will be found that the power or electric force 

 required to plate one metal is just the same as to 

 disintegrate it, and the electric force is a great 

 solvent, while the magnetic force is a concentrating 

 form-moulding world-building power. And these two 

 forces evenly balanced perpetuate the universe. The 

 fluidic condition of matter arises from molecular 

 activity before the atoms have assumed the crystal- 

 line state, and all fluids are easily vaporized to 

 invisible gases. 



The primitive planet, in coming from nebula to 

 crystalline form, had to pass through the fluidic 

 state, because the electric atomic balance had not 

 yet been acquired sufficient to produce solidity. 



In this stage there could be no organic life ; but the 

 earth was enveloped in dense clouds of vapor, and 

 there was no light for many ages, because the 

 earth's surface was below the electric and atomic 

 rate that produced light, and the dense gases and 

 vapors floating around it and between it and the 

 sun prevented the light penetrating its atmospheric 

 pall of darkness. 



But in that darkness and vapor and cosmic con- 



