So February sped along and the spring of 1920 approached. The warm round crystal called earth made its way through the interstellar spaces and tipped its darkened pole into the sun’s rays. The ice began to melt, keeping its chill to the last lump. Everything else began to expand a little, as if softly burning. Inert snails and frogs and buds began to swell. The pussywillows came forth in gray velvet and stood near each other like bashful lovers, for male and female created He them. Presently the hidden fires began to glow pink in arbutus among the pines, and ran like blue flame along the shore in violets, and then to fill the upland woods with the frank conflagration of adder’s tongue. Jean went about feeling fire of every imaginable temperature. She delighted to call it out of all sorts of things in her laboratory and out of doors. With a bit of steel she struck fire from every part of her island. And having abandoned the impossible task of playing the elements on her little old rosewood piano, she contented herself with making up a melody for some words of Browning: Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes, Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapes Some befitting cradle where the babe had birth— Wholly heaven’s product, unallied to earth. Splendors recognized as perfect in the star!— In our flint their home was, housed as now they are. Chapter 78. Platinum That summer she was a good deal saddened by the news from Russia. In the broad valley of the Volga, already ravaged by the passions of armies, no spring showers had coaxed the wheat out of its matrix, and Samarans might soon be driven to devour their own children. She could not fully sense the image and horror of what was coming, but it was all a warning against marriage. Yet Russia was rich in natural resources, and especially rich in platinum, which it had been using as coins. She had never seen platinum, and had no hope of seeing it, but she knew how precious it is in a laboratory. She knew also that because it is worth five times as much as gold, much of it hangs on the necks of rich women, who are utterly unaware of the sin they are committing. The whole earth produces less than ten tons a year, and every ounce of it is needed for crucibles or wire or apparatus, but the density of platinum is nothing to the density of human minds. One thing about platinum interested and puzzled her. When finely divided it hastens the union of hydrogen and oxygen without losing any of its mass. It produces explosions without itself exploding. It struck her that this was a good deal like the rich women who owned it, but that it was also like electricity. She had a horror of explosions, but she had a growing interest in electricity. If George Gillies could find her some zinc and copper, she might be able to make herself a battery. Chapter 79. Gold