Page:John Uri Lloyd - Etidorhpa.djvu/359

 === CHAPTER XLIX. ===

OSCILLATING THROUGH SPACE.—EARTH'S SHELL ABOVE ME.
Continued my companion:

"We have just now crossed the line of gravitation. We were drawn downward until at a certain point, to which I called your attention at the time, we recently crossed the curved plane of perfect rest, where gravity ceases, and by our momentum are now passing beyond that plane, and are now pressing against the bond of gravitation again. This shell in which gravity centers is concentric with that of the earth's exterior, and is about seven hundred miles below its surface. Each moment of time will now behold us carried farther from this sphere of attraction, and thus the increasing distance increases the force of the restraining influence. Our momentum is thus retarded, and consequently the rapidity of our motion is continually decreasing. At last when the forces of gravitation and mass motion neutralize each other, we will come to a state of rest again. When our motion in this direction ceases, however, gravitation, imperishable, continues to exert its equalizing influence, the result being a start in the opposite direction, and we will then reverse our course, and retrace our path, crossing again the central band of attraction, to retreat and fly to the opposite side of the power of greater attraction, into the expanse from which we came, and that is now above us."

"Can this oscillation ever end? Are we to remain thus, as an unceasing pendulum, traversing space, to and fro across this invisible shell of attraction from now until the end of time?"

"No; there are influences to prevent such an experience; one being the friction of the attenuated atmosphere into which we plunge each time that we cross the point of greater gravity,