38 



Composition of the Atmosphere 



Table 18. Analyses of air collected on the Atlantic Ocean, between Liverpool and 



Vera Cruz. 



Date. 



Place. 



At sea, lat. 34 21'; long. 24 40'. 



Near St. Domingo, lat. 20; long. 72 30' . 



Vera Cruz 



Entrance to Gulf of Mexico, lat. 21 50'; long. 88 40'. 



Oxygen. 



p. ct. 

 \ 20.922 

 ( 20.920 

 \ 20.920 

 '/ 20.918 

 20.962 

 20.953 



Bay of Vera Cruz 20.965 



Table 19. Analyses of air collected at different parts of the East Indian Ocean. 



Date. 



Place. 



Oxygen. 



Bay of Goree (Senegal) 



Lat. 33 40' S.; long. 16 15' E. 



Long. 78 38' E.; lat. 2 29' S 



Gulf of Bengal; lat. 9 4' N.; long. 83 E. 1 . 

 On the Ganges, near Calcutta, noon. 2 



Calcutta 



On the Hoogly River (East Indies), opposite Ked- 

 gerre, lat. 21 53' N 



Mayotte, off Mozambique 



Simons Bay (Cape of Good Hope) 



Mers-el-Kebir (coast of Africa) 



p. ct. 



20.S96 

 20.843 

 20.854 



20.975 

 \ 20.460 

 I 20.453 

 \ 20.390 

 I 20.387 



20.866 

 i 20.920 

 - 20.921 

 ( 20.928 



20.910 



20.936 



20.870 



1 The aircontained 0.057 per cent of carbon dioxide. 



2 A note in connection with this sample says on March 8 there was a sudden invasion of cholera and 

 no samples were taken until March 15. The weather was excessively foggy during the night, and the 

 fogs did not disappear during the day; the air was full of putrefying vegetable and organic matter, and 

 there were many dead bodies in the river. The air contained 0.133 per cent of carbon dioxide. 



Two exceptions to the usual results appear in samples of air taken in 

 Toulon Harbor on May 27 at 8 h 30 m a. m., duplicate analyses giving 

 20.854 and 20.872 per cent of oxygen, respectively. These numbers are 

 appreciably less than the minimum which was obtained in the air of Paris* 

 but the air collected on June 5 at 11 p. m. in the port of Algiers gave even 

 lower results, these being 20.420 and 20.395 per cent, respectively. The 

 author does not question the sealing of the tubes, as it was done by a 

 person who had had experience in his own laboratory. 



In Ecuador two samples were taken; one which was collected in the 

 village of Guallabamba on August 3, 1848, at 8 h 15 m in the morning gave 

 20.960 per cent; the other, taken on the summit of Pichincha a mountain 

 higher than Mont Blanc on May 15, 1849, at 12 h 45 m p. m., gave 20.949 

 and 20.988 per cent, respectively. 



Among the analyses of air collected on the East Indian Ocean (see 

 table 19), only two show a composition very different from that of normal 



