254 THE FLOATING-MATTER OF THE AIR. 



with a door, windows, and window-shutters. Let an 

 aperture be made in one of the shutters through which 

 a sunbeam can pass. Close the door and windows sa 

 that no light shall enter save through the hole in the 

 shutter. The track of the sunbeam is at first per- 

 fectly plain and vivid in the air of the room. If all 

 disturbance of the air of the chamber be avoided, the 

 luminous track will become fainter and fainter, until at 

 last it disappears absolutely, and no trace of the beam 

 is to be seen. What rendered the beam visible at first ? 

 The floating dust of the air, which, when thus illuminated 

 and observed, is as palpable to sense as dust or powder 

 placed on the palm of the hand. In the still air the dust 

 gradually sinks to the floor or sticks to the walls and 

 ceiling, until finally, by this self-cleansing process, the 

 air is entirely freed from mechanically suspended matter. 

 Thus far, I think, we have made our footing sure. 

 Let us proceed. Chop up a beefsteak and allow it to 

 remain for two or three hours just covered with warm 

 water ; you thus extract the juice of the beef in a con- 

 centrated form. By properly boiling the liquid and 

 filtering it, you can obtain from it a perfectly trans- 

 parent beef-tea. Expose a number of vessels containing 

 this tea to the moteless air of your chamber; and 

 expose a number of vessels containing precisely the 

 same liquid to the dust-laden air. In three days every 

 one of the latter stinks, and examined with the micro- 

 scope every one of them is found swarming with the 

 bacteria of putrefaction. After three months, or three 

 years, the beef-tea within the chamber, if properly 

 sterilized in the first instance, will be found as sweet 

 and clear, and as free from bacteria, as it was at the 

 moment when it was first put in. There is absolutely 

 no difference between the air within and that without, 

 save that the one is dustless and the other dust- 



