12 THE ATMOSPHERE. 



its stages. It does not act upon metals, nor interrupt the 

 action of its associate upon them. It takes no part in 

 the preparation or the application of paints or dyes, nor 

 in destroying them when formed. It neither aids the 

 chemist, the mechanic, the housekeeper, nor the farmer, 

 nor interferes with any of their operations. It has no 

 agency in forming sugar, wine, cider, beer, bread, or 

 acids, nor in corroding metals, or spreading intemperance 

 by intoxicating liquors. 



Although the properties of nitrogen are almost wholly 

 negative, and it appears to be little more than an idle 

 spectator to the endless variety of phenomena produced 

 by the atmosphere, it is still an essential, as well as the 

 most abundant portion of it. Without it, the air which 

 surrounds our globe, could not conduct those innumera- 

 ble, constant, but silent operations, with the sole design 

 of promoting the health and happiness of the innumerable 

 living and active beings it envelopes. 



The most important office which nitrogen fills in the 

 great theatre in which it moves, appears to be occupying 

 the space which might otherwise be occupied by its more 

 powerful colleague ; to dilute or weaken oxigen, which, 

 if it occupied the whole region of the atmosphere, would 

 possess so much power as to defeat the numerous objects 

 so wisely designed by its creation to accomplish. 



While it never interferes with the vital action of oxi- 

 gen upon the lungs, it occupies the greatest part of their 

 contents, and by that means prevents the violence and 

 consequent destruction which must be produced, if the 

 large contents of those organs were wholly occupied by 

 the more powerful ingredient in the atmosphere. While 

 it never interrupts the beautiful and useful phenomenon 

 of combustion in its gentler forms, as in the useful and 

 domestic arts, it prevents the vast heap of ruins the earth 

 must soon present, by a general conflagration, if it was 

 enveloped in an atmosphere of pure oxigen. 



Not only in the extensive and constant operations of 

 respiration and combustion, but in fermentation, the ox- 

 idation of metals, and the minor offices of the atmosphere, 

 it appears to be the use of nitrogen, to prevent violence, 

 and to render the innumerable and endless movements in 



