  This formulation suggests, according to Weyl, an intuitive contrast  between Euclidean ‘distance-geometry’ and the  ‘near-geometry’ (Nahegeometrie) or  ‘field-geometry’ of Riemann. Weyl (1949a, 88)  compared Euclidean ‘distance-geometry’ to a crystal  “built up from uniform unchangeable atoms in the rigid and  unchangeable arrangement of a lattice”, and the latter  [Riemannian field-geometry] to a liquid, “consisting  of the same indiscernible unchangeable atoms, whose arrangement and  orientation, however, are mobile and yielding to forces acting upon  them.” 