CHAPTER XIX. 



THE ATMOSPHERE AND STORMS. 



Atmosphere said to be composed of oxygen aud nitrogen. An impossibility. 

 Air in no two places the same. Balloon explorations. Guy 

 Lussac. Everything with life has an atmosphere. The atmosphere 

 of the African. Impossible to get rid of it. The earth a living 

 body. Has an Atmosphere composed of its own materials. The 

 Atmosphere composed of hundreds of different compounds of ma- 

 terials. STORMS : Sir John Herschell and Prof. Rogers on Storms. 

 Magnetic curves from the poles of the earth, the cause of wind 

 and storms. Cause of Equatorial Calms. Maury on cyclones. 

 Description of a so-called Circular Storm. Hints for Weather 

 Prophets. 



IN school books we are told that air is composed of "20 parts 

 of oxygen to 80 parts of nitrogen." What nitrogen is we are 

 not told, but from the way it is made artificially, we should 

 imagine it to be of a vegetable character. As oxygen is of the 

 same nature, there must be some of the other elements as 

 a mineral to counteract and modify the vegetable, else the 

 atmosphere would be unfit for man or beast to live in. Be- 

 sides, we do not find the air in any two places to be the same. 

 The air of the city is different from that of the country, and the 

 sea air, from the air near a lake. The air at the tropics, is 

 different from that of temperate or polar regions, and the 



