This discovery haunted us. We followed
it in preference to all our studies.
We worked with it, we tested it in more ways
than we can describe, and each step was as
another miracle unveiling before us.
We came to know that we had found the
greatest power on earth. For it defies all
the laws known to men. It makes the needle
move and turn on the compass which we
stole from the Home of the Scholars;
but we had been taught, when still a child,
that the loadstone points to the north and that
this is a law which nothing can change;
yet our new power defies all laws.
We found that it causes lightning, and never
have men known what causes lightning.
In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of
iron by the side of our hole, and we
watched it from below. We have seen the
lightning strike it again and again.
And now we know that metal draws the power
of the sky, and that metal can be made to
give it forth.

We have built strange things with this
discovery of ours. We used for it the
copper wires which we found here under the
ground. We have walked the length of our
tunnel, with a candle lighting the way.