rency being purely a
surface phenomenon, and peculiar to this one form of substance. I have
told you that the ether is a fourth-order substance--this also is a
fourth-order substance, but it is crystalline, whereas the ether is
probably fluid and amorphous. You might call this faidon crystallized
ether without being far wrong."

"But it should weigh tons, and it is hardly heavier than air--or no,
wait a minute. Gravitation is also a fourth-order phenomenon, so it
might not weigh anything at all--but it would have terrific mass--or
would it, not having protons? Crystallized ether would displace fluid
ether, so it might--I'll give up! It's too deep for me!" said Seaton.

"Its theory is abstruse, and I cannot explain it to you any more fully
than I have, until after we have given you a knowledge of the fourth and
fifth orders. Pure fourth-order material would be without weight and
without mass; but these crystals as they are found are not absolutely
pure. In crystallizing from the magma, they entrapped sufficient numbers
of particles of the higher orders to give them the characteristics which
you have observed. The impurities, however, are not sufficient in
quantity to offer a point of attack to any ordinary reagent."

"But how could such material possibly be formed?"

"It could be formed only in some such gigantic cosmic body as this, our
green system, formed incalculable ages ago, when all the mass comprising
it existed as one colossal sun. Picture for yourself the condition in
the center of that sun. It has attained the theoretical maximum of
temperature--some seventy million of your centigrade degrees--the
electrons have been stripped from the protons until the entire central
core is one solid ball of neutronium and can be compressed no more
without destruction of the protons themselves. Still the pressure
increases. The temperature, already at the theoretical maximum, can no
longer increase. What happens?"

"Disruption."

"Precisely. And just at the instant of disruption, during the very
instant of generation of the frightful forces that are to hurl suns,
planets and satellites millions of miles out into space--in that instant
of time, as a result of those unimaginable temperatures and pressures,
the faidon comes into being. It can be formed only by the absolute
maximum of temperature and at a pressure which can exist only
momentarily, even in the largest conceivable masses."

"Then how can you make a lens of