ATMOSPHERE. 



235 



in proportion to its magnitude, as a surface one inch 

 square can, by the naked eye, at the distance of one 

 foot. 



We have stated somewhat at length the command 

 which observation has of the surface of the moon, for 

 two reasons : first, because the subject is not, so far 

 as we are aware, mentioned by any writer on natural 

 history ; and secondly, because the consideration of 

 it is most essential to the accurate formation of those 

 enlarged views of nature, which are equally essential 

 to the full perfection-of the science, and of the lesson 

 of moral and intellectual wisdom, which it is so admi- 

 rably calculated to afford. No one who observes 

 merely species, if there is in him any speculation 

 at all, can fail to notice how much the habits, and 

 even the forms and structures, are dependent upon 

 the localities of which they are natives, and espe- 

 cially upon the degree and distribution of humidity 

 and heat in these localities. 



Now, the object of this article is to show that the 

 atmosphere is the grand agent in regulating both the 

 degree and the distribution of these, especially of the 

 humidity ; and therefoic we cannot start so as to 

 bring out the full force of its advantages, unless we 

 start with the consideration of a surface which has no 

 moisture to be distributed, and no atmosphere to act in 

 its distribution. On the earth we have no such surface. 

 The atmosphere is every where, and no where alto- 

 gether without heat and moisture. The genial in- 

 fluence of the sun, borne upon the wings of the cver- 

 stiiring atmosphere, acts upon the mountain snows 

 and the polar ice ; and, even upon the most dry and 

 thirsty deserts, the dew of heaven descends, and in 

 the season, the rains invade their margins and refresh 

 their oases with fertility. The one and the other are 

 parts of the system of nature, brought into action by 

 tln v agency of the atmosphere ; and though in them- 

 selves they are at variance with our common notions 

 of productiveness, we know not the advantages 

 which they may confer upon our own fields and 

 their productions. It may be (and there is more than 

 an idle supposition in the idea), that, but for the 

 dry surface of great part of Africa, the north wind 

 would not blow in winter, and consolidate our vege- 

 table tribes into their hybcrnal repose, but that 

 through that period of the year they might have 

 their strength exhausted by a sickly action during 

 the day, which should be destroyed by the cold of 

 each succeeding night ; and it may be, too, but for 

 the seasonal action upon the " regions of the thick- 

 ribbed ice" in the summer, the soft south would not 

 watVus its heating breezes and its fertilising showers. 

 Such questions are beyond the present state of our 

 knowledge ; but as we can take no part of the sur- 

 face of our globe out of the general system of nature's 

 working, so we are unable to say what part each 

 docs or does not perform in that grand system. In 

 the common accounts we find such a proneness to 

 exaggerate, that we ought to pause before we give 

 credence. According to these, the thirsty desert is 

 the region of death ; and the " simoom" not oidy 

 kills, but instantly disjoints and dismembers the slain. 

 But, according to the evidence of those who have 

 been exposed to it, in those places where it is usually 

 represented as being the most fatal, the simoom is 

 misrepresented calumniated. There is no pesti- 

 lence in it ; and though it scorches with drought, 

 and is mechanically annoying from the clouds of 

 sand which it raises, there is nothing deathly in it ; 



and it may be the means of diffusing the elements 

 of health over those very places where it rages in 

 the utmost of its fury. Nowhere on the earth's sur- 

 face do we find the abandoned spot the place where 

 the goodness of the Creator is not manifested ; and if 

 we imagine that there are any where the elements of 

 ruin, we find that He hath " fenced them in with 

 gates and bars " which they cannot pass. We find 

 the barrier set the confine traced, by 



" The golden compasses, prepared 

 In heaven's eternal store, to circumscribe 

 The universe, and all created things;" 



so that all may " work together for good." 



Therefore, we must look elsewhere for the total 

 absence of the elements of life, growth, and enjoy- 

 ment ; and we find that dreary state of things in the 

 moon. What may be the use of that luminary in 

 the economy of general nature, besides the light 

 which it reflects upon our earth, and the oceanic and 

 atmospheric tides which its attraction produces, we 

 have no means of ascertaining', because we are un- 

 able to cross-examine by any evidence of sense or 

 judgment of reason, the appearance which it presents 

 to the eye, aided by the telescope. But that sight 

 is not simply melancholy, it is awfully appalling, 

 and outrivals all that fancy has delineated of the 

 regions of woe. Seen through a glass of even mode- 

 rate power, the nearest comparison to the places of 

 it upon which the light falls obliquely, is a piece of 

 half-melted snow, which is honey-combed by the 

 action of the weather, but from which the water is 

 clean gone, and there is no earth in the interstices 

 upon which fertility can in any way display itself. 

 But when \ve apply the requisite power, the sight is 

 truly appalling ; large blisters, of which the margins 

 stand up rugged for a mile, are many miles in cir- 

 cumference, and the depths of the pits fearful ; 

 plains of solid matter furrowed, as if chaos had been 

 fixed in death in the wildest of its turmoil ; single 

 angular rocks, rising to the altitude of our moun- 

 tains, with crystals, hundreds of fathoms in length, 

 projecting horizontally from their rugged and per- 

 pendicular sides ; and angular fragments flung toge- 

 ther at their bases, each rivalling a hill in magnitude : 

 these, these are the visible features of the surface of 

 a globe which contains no water, and is surrounded 

 by no atmosphere. Of course, upon such a globe, 

 there can be no plant and no animal at all resembling 

 those which are found upon the earth ; and indeed 

 we must entirely alter our notions *of life and growth, 

 before we can imagine that there is either the one 

 or the other there. Compared to such a globe, 

 the most dreary parts of the earth have ail the 

 charms of a paradise ; and they, in no small degree, 

 owe those charms to the agency of the atmosphere. 



But when we consider the state of the surface of 

 our own planet, and the various species of action of 

 which it is the theatre, we cannot fail in being con- 

 vinced that, but for the agency of the atmosphere, it 

 would speedily become desolate, even leaving out of 

 view its essential necessity for the lives of plants and 

 animals, as shortly explained in the article AIR. 

 Much of the surface is covered by water, but from 

 the saline ingredients with which that water is 

 mixed, it is, even if we were to suppose that it 

 could, by some mechanical means, return en masse 

 to the land, wholly unfit for land plants and land 

 animals. Those salts are ultimate chemical pro- 

 ductssulphates, chlorides, and hydro-chlorides, 



