“Imagination’s utmost stretch
In wonder dies away.”
Or take other interesting facts. One hundred threads of the silkworm must be placed side by side to make up the thickness of a line (—) about 1/25th of an inch; and metals can be drawn out to such exceeding fineness that twelve hundred of the fine wires will occupy only the space of one hundred silkworms’ threads, or one millimetre.
Porosity is another attribute of Matter, for in all Matter there are pores, or spaces, between the particles. Sometimes such openings are plainly visible; in very “solid” bodies they are, to a great extent, indistinguishable. But we know that the spaces exist, because we can compress the particles together.
Inertia is also a general property of Matter, and the meaning of the term is “inactivity,” or passiveness—a want of power in an object to move, or when moving, to stop of itself. It will come to rest apparently by itself, but the resistance of the air and the friction of the ground, or the attraction of the earth, will really occasion the stoppage of the object. We will speak more fully of Inertia presently. Elasticity and Expansibility are evident in fluids and gases.
We have thus introduced our readers to some of the most evident facts connected with Matter. The various Forces and Phenomena of attraction will be fully considered farther on; at present we are about to show our readers how they may first profitably study Science in the open air for themselves, and we will give them our experience of the Book of Nature.
