The Witness - Grace Livingston Hill Lutz (top 5 books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
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Won't--It Would Melt And Run Over The Floor Like Mercury. The Melting
Point Is 87 Deg. Fahr. It Might Be Used In Thermometers For Measuring
Temperatures Above The Boiling Point Of Mercury Were It Not For The
Peculiar Fact That Gallium Wets Glass So It Sticks To The Side Of The
Tube Instead Of Forming A Clear Convex Curve On Top Like Mercury.
Then There Is Columbium, The American Metal. It Is Strange That An
Element Named After Columbia Should Prove So Impractical. Columbium Is A
Metal Closely Resembling Tantalum And Tantalum Found A Use As Electric
Light Filaments. A Columbium Lamp Should Appeal To Our Patriotism.
The So-Called "Rare Elements" Are Really Abundant Enough Considering The
Earth's Crust As A Whole, Though They Are So Thinly Scattered That They
Are Usually Overlooked And Hard To Extract. But Whenever One Of Them Is
Found Valuable It Is Soon Found Available. A Systematic Search Generally
Reveals It Somewhere In Sufficient Quantity To Be Worked. Who, Then,
Will Be The First To Discover A Use For Indium, Germanium, Terbium,
Thulium, Lanthanum, Neodymium, Scandium, Samarium And Others As Unknown
To Us As Tungsten Was To Our Fathers?
As Evidence Of The Statement That It Does Not Matter How Rare An Element
May Be It Will Come Into Common Use If It Is Found To Be Commonly
Useful, We May Refer To Radium. A Good Rich Specimen Of Radium Ore,
Pitchblende, May Contain As Much, As One Part In 4,000,000. Madame
Curie, The Brilliant Polish Parisian, Had To Work For Years Before She
Could Prove To The World That Such An Element Existed And For Years
Afterwards Before She Could Get The Metal Out. Yet Now We Can All Afford
A Bit Of Radium To Light Up Our Watch Dials In The Dark. The Amount
Needed For This Is Infinitesimal. If It Were More It Would Scorch Our
Skins, For Radium Is An Element In Eruption. The Atom Throws Off
Corpuscles At Intervals As A Roman Candle Throws Off Blazing Balls. Some
Of These Particles, The Alpha Rays, Are Atoms Of Another Element,
Helium, Charged With Positive Electricity And Are Ejected With A
Velocity Of 18,000 Miles A Second. Some Of Them, The Beta Rays, Are
Negative Electrons, Only About One Seven-Thousandth The Size Of The
Others, But Are Ejected With Almost The Speed Of Light, 186,000 Miles A
Second. If One Of The Alpha Projectiles Strikes A Slice Of Zinc Sulfide
Chapter 7 Pg 47It Makes A Splash Of Light Big Enough To Be Seen With A Microscope, So
We Can Now Follow The Flight Of A Single Atom. The Luminous Watch Dials
Consist Of A Coating Of Zinc Sulfide Under Continual Bombardment By The
Radium Projectiles. Sir William Crookes Invented This Radium Light
Apparatus And Called It A "Spinthariscope," Which Is Greek For
"Spark-Seer."
Evidently If Radium Is So Wasteful Of Its Substance It Cannot Last
Forever Nor Could It Have Forever Existed. The Elements Then Ate Not
Necessarily Eternal And Immutable, As Used To Be Supposed. They Have A
Natural Length Of Life; They Are Born And Die And Propagate, At Least
Some Of Them Do. Radium, For Instance, Is The Offspring Of Ionium,
Which Is The Great-Great-Grandson Of Uranium, The Heaviest Of Known
Elements. Putting This Chemical Genealogy Into Biblical Language We
Might Say: Uranium Lived 5,000,000,000 Years And Begot Uranium X1, Whietween Her Set Lips. He Was
Relieved When At Last The Carriage Stopped Again And He Recognized The
Stone Buildings Of One Of The City's Great Hospitals.
Chapter 8 Pg 48
When Courtland Got Back To The University The Afternoon Examination Had
Been In Progress Almost Half An Hour. With A Brief Explanation To The
Professor, He Settled To His Belated Work Regardless Of Bill Ward's
Anxious Glances From The Back Of The Room And Pat's Lifted Eyebrows From
The Other Side. He Knew He Had Yet To Meet Those Three Beloved
Antagonists. He Seemed To Have Progressed Through Eons Of Experience
Since He Talked With Them Last Night. The Intricate Questions Of The
Examination On Political Science Over Which He Was Trying Faithfully To
Work Seemed Paltry Beside The Great Facts Of Life And Death.
He Had Remained At The Hospital Until The Girl Came Out Of Her Long
Swoon And The Doctor Said She Was Better, But The Thought Of Her White
Face Was Continually Before Him. When He Closed His Eyes For A Moment To
Think How To Phrase Some Answer In His Paper He Would See That Still,
Beautiful Face As It Lay On His Shoulder In The Carriage. It Had Filled
Him With Awe To Think That He, A Stranger, Was Her Only Friend In That
Great City, And She Might Be Dying! Somehow He Could Not Cast Her Off As
A Common Stranger.
He Had Arranged That She Should Be Placed In A Small Private Room At A
Moderate Cost, And Paid For A Week In Advance. The Cost Was A Mere
Chapter 8 Pg 49Trifle To Courtland. The New Overcoat He Had Meant To Buy This Week
Would More Than Cover The Cost. Besides, If He Needed More Than His
Ample Allowance His Father Was Always Quite Ready To Advance What He
Wanted. But The Strange Thing About All This Was That, Having Paid To
Put The Girl Where She Would Be Perfectly Comfortable And Be Well Taken
Care Of, He Could Not Cast Her Off And Forget Her. His Responsibility
Seemed To Be Doubled With Everything He Did For Her. Between The
Problems Of Deep State Perplexities And Intrigues Was Ever The
Perplexity About That Girl And How She Was Going To Live All Alone With
Her Tragedy--Or Tragedies--For It Was Apparent From The Little Hints She
Had Dropped That The Death Of The Small Brother Was Only The Climax Of
Quite A Series Of Sorrows That Had Come To Her Young Life. And Yet She,
With All That Sorrow Compassing Her About, Could Still Believe In The
Christ And Call Upon Him In Her Trouble! There Was A Kind Of Triumphant
Feeling In His Heart When He Reached That Conclusion.
He Lay On The Couch In Tennelly's Room That Night After Supper And Tried
To Think It Out, While The Other Three Clattered Away About Their Marks
And Held An Indignation Meeting Over The Way Pat Was Getting
Black-Listed By All The Professors Just When He Was Trying So Hard. He
Didn't Know The Fellows Were Keeping It Up To Get His Mind Away From The
Funeral. He Was Thinking About That Girl.
The Doctor Had Told Him That She Was Very Much Run Down. It Looked As If
The Process Had Been Going On For Some Time. Her Heart Action Was Not
All It Should Be, And There Were Symptoms Of Lack Of Nutrition. What She
Needed Was Rest, Utter Rest. Sleep If Possible Most Of The Time For At
Least A Week, With, Careful Feeding Every Two Or Three Hours, And After
That A Quiet, Cheerful Place With Plenty Of Fresh Air And Sunshine And
More Sleep; No Anxiety, And Nothing To Call On The Exhausted Energies
For Action Or Hurry.
Now How Was A State Of Things Like That To Be Brought About For A Person
Who Had No Home, No Friends, No Money, And No Time To Lie Idle?
Moreover, How Could There Be Any Cheerful Spot In The Wide World For A
Little Girl Who Had Passed Through The Fire As She Had Done?
Presently He Went Out To The Drug-Store And Telephoned To The Hospital.
They Said She Had Had Only One More Slight Turn Of Unconsciousness, But
Had Rallied From It Quickly And Was Resting Quietly Now. They Hoped She
Would Have A Good Night.
Then He Went Back To His Room And Thought About Her Some More. He Had An
Important English Examination The Next Day, One In Which He Especially
Wanted To Do Well; Yet Try As He Would To Concentrate On Wells And Shaw,
That Girl And What Was Going To Become Of Her Would Get In Between Him
And His Book.
It Was After Ten O'clock When He Sauntered Down The Hall And Stood In
Stephen Marshall's Room For A Few Minutes, As He Was Getting The Habit
Of Doing Every Night. The Peace Of It And The Uplift That That Room
Always Gave Him Were Soothing To His Soul. If He Had Known A Little More
About The Christ To Whose Allegiance He Had Declared Himself He Might
Have Knelt And Asked For Guidance; But As Yet He Had Not So Much As
Chapter 8 Pg 50Heard Of A Promise To The Man Who "Abides," And "Asks What He Will."
Nevertheless, When He Entered That Room His Mind Took On The Attitude Of
Prayer And He Felt That Somehow The Presence Got Close To Him, So That
Questions That Had Perplexed Him Were Made Clear.
As He Stood That Night Looking About The Plain Walls, His Eyes Fell Upon
That Picture Of Stephen Marshall's Mother. A Mother! Ah! If There Were A
Mother Somewhere To Whom That Girl Could Go! Some One Who Would
Understand Her; Be Gentle And Tender With Her; Love Her, As He Should
Think A Real Mother Would Do--What A Difference That Would Make!
He Began To Think Over All The Women He Knew--All The Mothers. There
Were Not So Many Of Them. Some Of The Professors' Wives Who Had Sons And
Daughters Of Their Own? Well, They Might Be All Well Enough For Their
Own Sons And Daughters, But There Wasn't One Who Seemed Likely To Want
To Behave In A Very Motherly Way To A Stranger Like His Waif Of A Girl.
They Were Nice To The Students, Polite And
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