knowledge is unless you apply it. You see, over our Cavorite this ceased
to be the case, the air there ceased to exert any pressure, and the air
round it and not over the Cavorite was exerting a pressure of fourteen
pounds and a half to the square in upon this suddenly weightless air. Ah!
you begin to see! The air all about the Cavorite crushed in upon the air
above it with irresistible force. The air above the Cavorite was forced
upward violently, the air that rushed in to replace it immediately lost
weight, ceased to exert any pressure, followed suit, blew the ceiling
through and the roof off....

"You perceive," he said, "it formed a sort of atmospheric fountain, a kind
of chimney in the atmosphere. And if the Cavorite itself hadn't been loose
and so got sucked up the chimney, does it occur to you what would have
happened?"

I thought. "I suppose," I said, "the air would be rushing up and up over
that infernal piece of stuff now."

"Precisely," he said. "A huge fountain--"

"Spouting into space! Good heavens! Why, it would have squirted all the
atmosphere of the earth away! It would have robbed the world of air! It
would have been the death of all mankind! That little lump of stuff!"

"Not exactly into space," said Cavor, "but as bad--practically. It would
have whipped the air off the world as one peels a banana, and flung it
thousands of miles. It would have dropped back again, of course--but on
an asphyxiated world! From our point of view very little better than if it
never came back!"