lashes upon the earth.'

"We know that Christ, while walking on the waves, did not sink, and
that he and Elijah were carried up into heaven. What became of their
material bodies we cannot tell, but they were certainly superior to
the force of gravitation. We have no reason to believe that in
miracles any natural law was broken, or even set aside, but simply that
some other law, whose workings we do not understand, became operative
and modified the law that otherwise would have had things its own way.
In apergy we undoubtedly have the counterpart of gravitation, which
must exist, or Nature's system of compensation is broken. May we not
believe that in Christ's transfiguration on the mount, and in the
appearance of Moses and Elias with him--doubtless in the flesh, since
otherwise mortal eyes could not have seen them--apergy came into play
and upheld them; that otherwise, and if no other modification had
intervened, they would have fallen to the ground; and that apergy was,
in other words, the working principle of those miracles?"

"May we not also believe," added Cortlandt, "that in the
transfiguration Christ's companions took the substance of their
material bodies--the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon--from the
air and the moisture it contained; for, though spiritual bodies, be
their activity magnetic or any other, could of course pass the absolute
cold and void of space without being affected, no mortal body could;
and that in the same manner Elijah's body dissolved into air without
the usual intervention of decomposition; for we know that, though
matter can easily change its form, it can never be destroyed."

All assented to this, and Ayrault continued: "If apergy can annul
gravitation, I do not see why it should not do more, for to annul it
the repulsion of the earth that it produces must be as great as its
attraction, unless we suppose gravitation for the time being to be
suspended; but whether it is or not, does not affect the result in this
case, for, after the apergetic repulsion is brought to the degree at
which a body does not fall, any increase in the current's strength will
cause it to rise, and in the case of electro-magnets we know that the
attraction or repulsion has practically no limit. This will be of
great advantage to us," he continued, "for if a projectile could move
away from the earth with no more rapid acceleration than that with
which it approaches, it would take too long to reach th