16 THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE ATMOSPHERIC OCEAN. 



Immensity of the Atmospheric Ocean The Component Parts of the Atmosphere 

 Oxygen Nitrogen Wonderful Constancy in the Composition of the Atmosphere 

 Antagonism between Vegetable and Animal Life The System of the Winds 

 Dependence of all Terrestrial Life upon the actual Constitution of the Atmosphere 

 Atmospheric Air but a Mixture No Chemical Combination of Oxygen and Nitro- 

 gen Transparency of the Air Its Influence upon the Mental Development of 

 Mankind Air considered as the Bearer of Sounds Voices of Nature. 



OVER sea and land spreads the vast cupola of the atmospheric 

 ocean. You might fly twenty times higher than ever the condor 

 flies, you might pile fifty Mont Blancs one upon the other, 

 and yet you would not reach its confines. 



In wondrous majesty the sea rolls its billows over three-fourths 

 of the surface of the globe, and the plummet has not yet revealed 

 to us all the mysteries of its depths ; but even the sea is small, 

 when compared with the vast domains of air that rise above it 

 to an unknown height. 



Of what substances is this immense aerial ocean composed ? 

 It was a highly important step in the progress of human know- 

 ledge when this question was first answered, when towards the 

 end of the last century Lavoisier first discovered that the air we 

 breathe is not a simple elementary body, but a mixture of two 

 gases of very different properties, to which he gave the names of 

 oxygen and nitrogen. 



As is well known, the first of these gases, which forms about 

 a fifth part of the volume of the air, is extremely combustible, 

 and has a great tendency to combine with other bodies ; while 

 nitrogen, which occupies the remaining four-fifths of the volume 

 of the atmosphere, is incombustible, and but little inclined to 

 sacrifice its independent existence ; and thus, while oxygen enters 

 largely into the composition of water, and of most of the sub- 

 stances which form the solid earth-rind, nitrogen is chiefly con- 

 fined to the aerial regions. 



