A Sermon.

Manawatu Herald, 30 May 1893, Page 3

A Sermon.

The following ; letter by Mr E.: s Tregear in Friday's Post is worth ': thinking over, the latest discoveries assisting to explain many hitherto mysteries :— I beg to draw the attention of students in chemistry 'arid w physics to an article pn "Recent. Science " in the NiheteenthVQentut-y Review for April, 1898. It describes a new and simple method of producing exceedingly high temperatures by means of the electric, arc and a orucible deposited within super-posed bricks of quicklime. The writer says: — "The effects, of this little furnace are simply wonderful. At about 4500deg. . lime,, . stroutia, and magnesia are crystalised in a few minutes. . . . . . At about 4050deg. pure aliimiriaf is; fused, and little rubies, are . formed ;: true, they are, less beautiful than. : those of Fremy, but the whole ,ex-j • periment lasts less than a quarter of ; att hour. At' a higher temperature ' alumina is even volatilised, and nbtihing is left' of it in the 'crucible.-" This seems to me a wonderful and exceedingly interesting thing. Philosophers haye talked for centuries about matter and force, atoms molecules,, iortices of atoms, &c., &c, till thie brain reels under the many systems, . Finally, we' are told that •' Nothing is, but position," that it is only, the relationship which one set of atoms bears to another that enables us to perceive them with the sensed Certainly the above quoted exprjinent would appear to prove thi^^l^ftttything seems to Jiave.u »|^hexistencej it is '♦ the everlasting nMfe^eiifwe can^actualiy site the^clay (alumina) of the solid 'eaVth made . to . - exhale as vapour -in a chemical experiment, then we can bigin to realise how under the intense. 7 heat of cosmic changes the world dnd all it holds can "flow from form to form," and that nothing exists except it its relation tp_ splftethmg else.: , , ; ;