Part 39 (2/2)
”I can not comprehend you. You speak of continuing our journey towards the center of the earth, and at the same time you say that after leaving the Median Circle, we will then ascend, which seems contradictory.”
”I have endeavored to show you that matter is resting in or on a central sphere of energy, which attracts solid bodies towards its central plane.
From this fundamental and permanent seat of gravity we may regard our progress as up-hill, whether we proceed towards the hollow center or towards the outer surface of the globe. If a stick weighted on one end is floated upright in water, an insect on the top of the stick above the water will fall to the surface of the liquid, and yet the same insect will rise to the surface of the water if liberated beneath the water at the bottom of the stick. This comparison is not precisely applicable to our present position, for there is no change in medium here, but it may serve as an aid to thought and may indicate to you that which I wish to convey when I say 'we ascend' in both directions as we pull against Gravity. The terms up and down are not absolute, but relative.”
Thus we continued an undefined period in mind conversation; and of the information gained in my experience of that delightful condition, I have the privilege now to record but a small portion, and even this statement of facts appears, as I glance backward into my human existence, as if it may seem to others to border on the incredible. During all that time--I know not how long the period may have been--we were alternately pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing through the part.i.tion of division (the sphere of gravity) that separated the inner from the outer substantial crust of earth. With each vibration our line of travel became shorter and shorter, like the decreasing oscillations of a pendulum, and at last I could no longer perceive the rus.h.i.+ng motion of a medium like the air. Finally my guide said that we were at perfect rest at a point in that mysterious medial sphere which, at a distance of about seven hundred miles below the level of the sea, concentrates in its encompa.s.sing curvature, the mighty power of gravitation. We were fixed seven hundred miles from the outer surface of the globe, but more than three thousand from the center.
CHAPTER L.
MY WEIGHT ANNIHILATED.--”TELL ME,” I CRIED IN ALARM, ”IS THIS TO BE A LIVING TOMB?”
”If you will reflect upon the condition we are now in, you will perceive that it must be one of unusual scientific interest. If you imagine a body at rest, in an intangible medium, and not in contact with a gas or any substance capable of creating friction, that body by the prevailing theory of matter and motion, unless disturbed by an impulse from without, would remain forever at absolute rest. We now occupy such a position. In whatever direction we may now be situated, it seems to us that we are upright. We are absolutely without weight, and in a perfectly frictionless medium. Should an inanimate body begin to revolve here, it would continue that motion forever. If our equilibrium should now be disturbed, and we should begin to move in a direction coinciding with the plane in which we are at rest, we would continue moving with the same rapidity in that direction until our course was arrested by some opposing object. We are not subject to attraction of matter, for at this place gravitation robs matter of its gravity, and has no influence on extraneous substances. We are now in the center of gravitation, the 'Sphere of Rest.'”
”Let me think it out,” I replied, and reasoning from his remarks, I mentally followed the chain to its sequence, and was startled as suddenly it dawned upon me that if his argument was true we must remain motionless in this spot until death (could beings in conditions like ourselves die beyond the death we had already achieved) or the end of time. We were at perfect rest, in absolute vacancy, there being, as I now accepted without reserve, neither gas, liquid, nor solid, that we could employ as a lever to start us into motion. ”Tell me,” I cried in alarm, ”is this to be a living tomb? Are we to remain suspended here forever, and if not, by what method can we hope to extricate ourselves from this state of perfect quiescence?” He again took the bar of iron from my hand, and cautiously gave it a whirling motion, releasing it as he did so. It revolved silently and rapidly in s.p.a.ce without support or pivot.
”So it would continue,” he remarked, ”until the end of time, were it not for the fact that I could not possibly release it in a condition of absolute horizontal rest. There is a slight, slow, lateral motion that will carry the object parallel with this sheet of energy to the material side of this crevice, when its motion will 'be arrested by the earth it strikes.'”
”That I can understand,” I replied, and then a ray of light broke upon me. ”Had not Cavendish demonstrated that, when a small ball of lead is suspended on a film of silk, near a ma.s.s of iron or lead, it is drawn towards the greater body? We will be drawn by gravity to the nearest cliff,” I cried.
”You mistake,” he answered; ”Cavendish performed his experiments on the surface of the earth, and there gravity is always ready to start an object into motion. Here objects have no weight, and neither attract nor repel each other. The force of cohesion holds together substances that are in contact, but as gravitation can not now affect matter out of molecular contact with other forms of matter, because of the equilibrium of all objects, so it may be likewise said, that bodies out of contact have at this point no attraction for one another. If they possessed this attribute, long ago we would have been drawn towards the earth cliff with inconceivable velocity. However, if by any method our bodies should receive an impulse sufficient to start them into motion, ever so gently though it be, we in like manner would continue to move in this frictionless medium--until--”
”We would strike the material boundary of this crevice,” I interrupted.
”Yes; but can you conceive of any method by which such voluntary motion can now be acquired?”
”No.”
”Does it not seem to you,” he continued, ”that when skillful mechanics on the earth's surface are able to adjust balances so delicately that in the face of friction of metal, friction of air, inertia of ma.s.s, the thousandth part of a grain can produce motion of the great beams and pans of such balances, we, in this location where there is no friction and no opposing medium--none at all--should be able to induce ma.s.s motion?”
”I can not imagine how it is possible, unless we shove each other apart.
There is no other object to push against,--but why do you continue to hold me so tightly?” I interrupted myself to ask, for he was clasping me firmly again.
”In order that you may not leave me,” he replied.
”Come, you trifle,” I said somewhat irritated; ”you have just argued that we are immovably suspended in a frictionless medium, and fixed in our present position; you ask me to suggest some method by which we can create motion, and I fail to devise it, and almost in the same sentence you say that you fear that I will leave you. Cease your incongruities, and advise with me rationally.”
”Where is the bar of iron?” he asked.
I turned towards its former location; it had disappeared.
”Have you not occasionally felt,” he asked, ”that in your former life your mind was a slave in an earthly prison? Have you never, especially in your dreams, experienced a sensation of mental confinement?”
”Yes.”
”Know then,” he replied, ”that there is a connection between the mind and the body of mortal beings, in which matter confines mind, and yet mind governs matter. How else could the will of men and animals impart voluntary motion to earthy bodies? With beings situated as are the animals on the surface of the earth, mind alone can not overcome the friction of matter. A person could suspend himself accurately on a string, or balance himself on a pivot, and wish with the entire force of his mind that his body would revolve, and still he would remain at perfect rest.”
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