A WONDERFUL WORLD 



we as wide of the mark as they were? So think 

 many earnest students of living things. When we 

 do not have to pass the torch of life along, but can 

 kindle it in our laboratories, then this charge will as- 

 sume a different aspect. 



m 



Nature works with such simple means! A little 



more or a little less of this or that, and behold the 



difference! A little more or a little less heat, and the 



face of the world is changed. 



" And the little more, and how much it is, 

 And the little less, and what worlds away! " 



At one temperature water is solid, at another it is 

 fluid, at another it is a visible vapor, at a still higher 

 it is an invisible vapor that burns like a flame. All 

 possible shades of color lurk in a colorless ray of 

 light. A little more or a little less heat makes all the 

 difference between a nebula and a sun, and between 

 a sun and a planet. At one degree of heat the ele- 

 ments are dissociated; at a lower degree they are 

 united. At one point in the scale of temperatures 

 life appears; at another it disappears. With heat 

 enough the earth would melt like a snowpall in a 

 furnace, with still more it would become a vapor and 

 float away like a cloud. More or less heat only 

 makes the difference between the fluidity of water 

 and the solidity of the rocks that it beats against, or 

 of the banks that hold it. 



55 



