The Crack of Doom | Page 5

A large number of wires
were connected with various portions of it, and these wires passed into
the side-wall of the building.
In appearance, this marvel of micrology, so far as the eye-piece and
upper portions went, was like an ordinary microscope, but its
magnifying power was to me unbelievable. It magnified the object
under examination many thousand times more than the most powerful
microscope in the world.
I looked through the upper lens, and saw a small globe suspended in the
middle of a tiny chamber filled with soft blue light, or transparent
material. Circling round this globe four other spheres revolved in orbits,
some almost circular, some elliptical, some parabolic. As I looked,
Brande touched a key, and the little globules began to fly more rapidly
round their primary, and make wider sweeps in their revolutions.
Another key was pressed, and the revolving spheres slowed down and
drew closer until I could scarcely distinguish any movement. The
globules seemed to form a solid ball.
"Attend now!" Brande exclaimed.
He tapped the first key sharply. A little grey cloud obscured the blue
light. When it cleared away, the revolving globes had disappeared.
"What do you think of it?" he asked carelessly.

"What is it? What does it mean? Is it the solar system or some other
system illustrated in miniature? I am sorry for the misadventure."
"You are partly correct," Brande replied. "It is an illustration of a
planetary system, though a small one. But there was no misadventure. I
caused the somewhat dangerous result you witnessed, the wreckage not
merely of the molecule of marsh gas you were examining--which any
educated chemist might do as easily as I--but the wreckage of its
constituent atoms. This is a scientific victory which dwarfs the work of
Hermholz, Avogadro, or Mendelejeff. The immortal Dalton himself"
(the word "immortal" was spoken with a sneer) "might rise from his
grave to witness it."
"Atoms--molecules! What are you talking about?" I asked, bewildered.
"You were looking on at the death of a molecule--a molecule of marsh
gas, as I have already said. It was caused by a process which I would
describe to you if I could reduce my own life work--and that of every
scientific amateur who has preceded me since the world began--into
half a dozen sentences. As that would be difficult, I must ask you to
accept my personal assurance that you witnessed a fact, not a fiction of
my imagination."
"And your instrument is so perfect that it not only renders molecules
and atoms but their diffusion visible? It is a microscopic impossibility.
At least it is amazing."
"Pshaw!" Brande exclaimed impatiently. "My instrument does certainly
magnify to a marvellous extent, but not by the old device of the simple
microscope, which merely focussed a large area of light rays into a
small one. So crude a process could never show an atom to the human
eye.
I add much to that. I restore to the rays themselves the luminosity
which they lost in their passage through our atmosphere. I give them
back all their visual properties, and turn them with their full etheric
blaze on the object under examination. Great as that achievement is, I
deny that it is amazing. It may amaze a Papuan to see his eyelash

magnified to the size of a wire, or an uneducated Englishman to see a
cheesemite magnified to the size of a midge. It should not amaze you to
see a simple process a little further developed."
"Where does the danger you spoke of come in?" I asked with a pretence
of interest. Candidly, I did not believe a single word that Brande had
said.
"If you will consult a common text-book on the physics of the ether,"
he replied, "you will find that one grain of matter contains sufficient
energy, if etherised, to raise a hundred thousand tons nearly two miles.
In face of such potentiality it is not wise to wreck incautiously even the
atoms of a molecule."
"And the limits to this description of scientific experiment? Where are
they?"
"There are no limits," Brande said decisively.
"No man can say to science 'thus far and no farther.' No man ever has
been able to do so. No man ever shall!"
CHAPTER III.
"IT IS GOOD TO BE ALIVE."
Amongst the letters lying on my breakfast-table a few days after the
meeting was one addressed in an unfamiliar hand. The writing was bold,
and formed like a man's. There was a faint trace of a perfume about the
envelope which I remembered.
I opened it first.
It was, as I expected, from Miss Brande. Her brother had gone to their
country place on the southern coast. She and her friend, Edith Metford,
were going that day. Their luggage was already at