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XII. — On the Air and Rain of Manchester. 

 By Robert Angus Smith, Ph. D. F.C.S. 



[Read May 4th, 1852.] 



Last year I read a, paper on this subject, somewhat different 

 in title, to the British Association. As a very imperfect 

 abstract was printed I have again written the paper, giving 

 no new facts, but using different words. 



My object is to shew that there are impurities in our 

 atmosphere which may be discovered by chemical analysis, 

 and that the senses and general impressions are not at fault 

 when they speak of the peculiarities of a town's atmosphere. 

 I had shewn in a former paper that it was not a mere fancy 

 to suppose that the air of crowded rooms was tainted, and 

 that it contained a substance capable of nourishing organic 

 forms, and therefore in itself organic; and although by no 

 means a new idea, as may be shewn from old writers, I con- 

 sider it of importance that these things should not rest merely 

 on ordinary observation, but should be more and more brought 

 under the domain of careful experiment. 



It had often been said that we were unable to tell the dif- 

 ference betwixt good air of the finest mountain side, and the 

 worst air of the hospitals, — or rather, we should now say, of 

 the infected dens of large towns, so well described in various 

 forms, of late years, to the public. It seemed to many as if 

 the eye had obtained a mysterious power of seeing what was 

 scarcely capable of being proved within the domain of sub- 

 stance, and the smell had a power of observing what was 

 more an influence than a positive thing. These modes of 



