§ 237, 238. THE ATMOSPHERE. 37 



237. Several years ago the French Academy sent out bottles 

 Experiments by the ^^^ causccl spccimens of air from various parts of 

 French Academy. ^|^q worlcl to bc collectcd and brought home to be 

 analyzed. The nicest tests which the most skillful chemists could 

 apply were incapable of detecting any, the shghtest, difference as 

 to ingredients in the specimens from either side of the equator; 

 so thorough in the performance of their office are these agents. 

 Nevertheless, there are a great many more demands on the at- 

 mosphere by the organic world for 2^cibulum in one hemisphere 

 than in the other ; and consequently a great many more inequali- 

 ties for these agents to restore in one than in the other. Of the 

 two, the land of our hemisphere most teems with life, and here 

 the atmosphere is most taxed. Here the hearth-stone of the hu- 

 man family has been laid. Here, with our fires in winter and our 

 crops in summer, with our work-shops, steam-engines, and fiery 

 furnaces going night and day — with the ceaseless and almost lim- 

 itless demands which the animal and vegetable kingdoms are 

 making upon the air overhead, we can not detect the slightest 

 difference between atmospherical ingredients in different hemi- 

 spheres ; and yet, notwithstanding the compensations and adjust- 

 ments between the two kingdoms of the organic world, there are 

 almost in every neighborhood causes at work which w^ould pro- 

 duce a difference were it not for these ascending and descending 

 columns of air ; for the obedient winds ; for this benign system 

 of circulation ; these little cogs and rachets which have been pro- 

 vided for its perfect working. The study of its mechanism is 

 good and wholesome in its influences, and the contemplation of 

 it well calculated to excite in the bosom of right-minded philoso- 

 phers the deepest and the best of emotions. 



238. Upon the proper adjustments of the dynamical forces 

 How supplies of fresh which kccD UD thcsc ccasclcsss movcmcuts the life of 



air are brought down . ■^ ■•• 



from the upper sky. orgauic uaturc dcpe'uds. If the air that is breathed 

 were not taken away and renewed, warm-blooded life would 

 cease ; if carbon, and oxygen, and hydrogen, and water were not 

 in due quantities dispensed by the restless air to the flora of the 

 earth, all vegetation would perish for lack of food. That our 

 planet may be liable to no such calamity, power has been given 

 to the wayward wind, as it "bloweth where it listeth," to bring 

 down fi^om the pure blue sky fresh supplies of life-giving air 



