“Now, if you’ll look in here—this is the purest and the softest Swedish bar iron—you’ll see where the edges of the crystals come together. These are friendly Ferrite pygmies, crowding close together. Ferrum is the Latin name for iron; you must remember that.”
“If I didn’t know,” said John Bradford, when he took his turn, “I should think I was looking at some sort of wood with a very fine grain.”
“This,” said Mr. Farnsworth, changing the specimen, “has black and white streaks in it; that means that the iron has begun to be steel. When it has light patches like these in it, we know that it has taken up more carbon, and has grown harder.
“So it goes,” he said, showing one after another of the specimens. “You can see for yourself that, if friendly pygmies stand in line, taking hold of hands, that would make a good kind of iron to draw out into a wire. If enemies stand around in groups, they make the iron easy to break.
“When we want steel for chisels, for example, we invite Tungsten to come in; when we want certain parts for automobiles we call in some Vanadium pygmies.”
“So,” said Mr. Prescott, “while we need the giants to make the pig iron, the real value of the iron and steel depends on the pygmies.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mr. Farnsworth.
“Anything the trouble with you, young chap?” asked Dr. Crandon. “You haven’t spoken for ten minutes. Feel bad anywhere?”
“No,” answered Billy. “I was just wishing I could know about all those things.”
“I’m glad it’s nothing worse than that,” said Dr. Crandon.