We do know that substances, such as fluids or gases, assume very different qualities when put into different rates of motion. A straw has been known to penetrate the body of a tree endwise by the extreme velocity imparted to it when carried in the vortex of a tornado. Instances of the terrific solid power of substances that are mobile when at rest are often exhibited during the progress of a tornado, especially when confined in very narrow limits. Sometimes a tornado cloud will form a hanging cone, running down to a sharp point at the lower end, which lower end may drag on the ground, or it may float a little distance above the ground, but more frequently it moves forward with a bounding motion, now touching the earth and now rising in the air. This cone is revolving at a terrific speed. The substance revolving is chiefly air, carrying other light substances that it has gathered up from the ground. If it comes in contact with a tree or building it cuts its way through as though it were a buzzsaw revolving at a high rate of speed. This is not simply the force of wind, but a kind of solidity given to the fluent air by its whirling motion. I remember a case in Iowa, where one of these revolving cones passed through a barnyard, striking the corner of the barn, cutting it off as smoothly as though done with some sharp-edged tool, but it in no other way affected the rest of the building. One would suppose that the centrifugal force developed in this whirling motion would cause the cone to fly apart, and why it does not no one certainly knows. But we are obliged to accept the fact. These cases are cited to show that motion gives rigidity to substances that in the quiescent state are mobile or easily moved, like the straw or the air. If we should assume that there are infinitesimal vortices or whirling rings in the ether, of such rapidity as to give it different degrees of rigidity, we can get a glimmering idea of how an atom of matter may be formed from ether. Referring to the rigidity which motion gives to ordinary matter, it is well known that when two vessels at sea collide the one having the higher speed is not so liable to injury as the one with the lower. The reader will perhaps remember a circumstance said to have occurred a few years ago on the Lake Shore Railroad, between Buffalo and Cleveland. The limited express was going west, and while rounding a curve the engineer suddenly came in sight of a wrecked freight train, a part of which was lying on the track where the express train had to pass. The engineer saw that he was too near the wreck to stop his train and that the only way to save his own train and the lives of his passengers would be to cut through the wreck. He pulled out the throttle and put on a full head of steam, and when the train struck the wreck it was going at such a high rate of speed that it cut through without seriously damaging the train and without harm to the passengers.