CHAPTER VIII
solar heat
On a clear, frosty day in winter, if you happen to be in a field or in the forest, and look around you and listen, you see the snow everywhere, the rivers are frozen across, the dry grass sticks out from the snow, the trees stand bare; there is not a sound.
Then look in the summer: the rivers are running and murmuring; in every little pond the frogs are calling and croaking;[1] the birds are flying about and singing and whistling; flies and gnats are humming and buzzing;[2] the trees and the grass are growing and waving. Freeze a kettle of water, it grows as hard as stone. Place the frozen kettle on the fire; the ice begins to crack, to melt, to move. The water begins to tremble and to send up bubbles; then when it begins to boil, it tosses and is agitated. The same phenomenon happens all over the world by the action of heat. When there is no heat, everything is dead. When there is heat, everything lives and moves. Little heat—little motion; more heat—more motion; much heat—much motion; great heatgreat motion.
Whence comes the heat to the world?
It comes from the sun.
In winter the sun runs low, its rays do not warm the earth, and nothing stirs. The little sun begins to go higher above our heads; it begins to send its light down directly on the earth—everything grows warm, and life and motion increase.
The snow begins to melt, the ice on the rivers begins to break up, the brooks come leaping down from the hills, the vapor from the waters rises into the sky and becomes clouds, and the showers fall.
What does all this?
The sun.
Seeds are sown, the germs sprout, the roots catch
