I may as well confess that we are not free agents in performing these gigantic jumps; we are compelled to go with the crowd when things are in such a state of stress. We simply cannot hold on to the atoms of matter upon which we happen to be located. It is only under very considerable pressure that we can perform this class of jump, and I beg to assure you that we are perfectly helpless in those cases where we have been dashed upon some poor creature with a message of death.
Alas! on one occasion I was one of a party who killed a very learned man. It was most distasteful to us; we could not possibly prevent it. He had erected a long rod which extended up into the air, and terminated at the lower end in his laboratory. Some of us who were in the upper atmosphere were forced on to this iron rod, and from past experience we quite expected that we should be subjected to a sudden expulsion to earth. Indeed we were waiting for the experimenter to provide us with a means of escape, when suddenly he brought his head too near to the end of the rod, and in a moment we were dashed to earth through his body. We learned with deep regret that the poor man had been robbed of his life.
To turn to something of a happier nature, I shall proceed to tell you of some of my earliest recollections. Remember I shall be speaking of a time long before man existed--even before this great planet was a solid ball.
This great globe upon which we live was once a glowing mass of flaming gas.
It is possible that the whole solar system was once one great mass.
In any case, we have no doubt that the moon is simply the result of a part of our glowing mass having become detached.
In the hottest stars we find only the lightest atoms of matter, such as hydrogen gas, the atoms of heavier substances being found in stars which have begun to cool down.
The electrons have been present from the very beginning, and it is they who go to make up the atoms of matter.
We picture an atom of matter as a miniature solar system of revolving electrons.
There is doubtless a corresponding amount of positive electricity, but so far we have no evidence of its nature.
Before giving an account of the everyday duties which we perform, it may interest you to hear something of our early history.