40 



This phenomenon is thus explained: all the vegetation 

 which chiefly supplies our air with oxygen and hydrogen, 

 without nitrogen and salts of silica could not conceivably 

 exist. The oxygen, penetrating the vegetable forms, 

 consumes the decayed parts and escapes to the surface 

 in the form either of oxygen-hydrogen or carbon, while 

 the nitrogen and silica, with the aid of the raising power 

 of hydrogen, renew the decayed matter, and :it the same 

 time expanding the vegetable growth by their own con- 

 tents, strengthen and enlarge the plant or tree. This is the 

 secret of the growth of vegetable forms. Hydrogen and 

 nitrogen are the builders ; oxygen the consumer of the 

 perished parts. Instead of these two constructive gases, 

 vegetation gives out hydrogen and oxygen together, and, 

 as these gases are both light, they at once force their 

 way upwards from under the heayier nitrogen around. 



Hydrogen is in itself a rousing gas, and its formation is 

 perpetually going on. This accounts for the perpetual 

 ascension of azote to the height of those sixty versts or 

 more which measure the earths atmosphere. Of course 

 the higher we go the less azote we find, and by this is 

 explained the fact that human life becomes impossible 

 above a certain altitude, because man's body, being for- 

 med under given conditions of external pressure from 

 the surrounding medium, with the cessation of such pres- 

 sure opens its pores too widely ;,^ blood flows, and the 

 organism suffers complete exhaustion. Exhaustion vi- 

 sibly ensues, though without bleeding, in journeys on 

 high mountains, so that only the natives of mountainous 

 regions, or those who have acquired the faculty by prac- 

 tice, can exercise the same energy on mountain altitudes 

 as near the level of the sea. 



Hydrogen in conjunction with oxygen, lifting the 

 heavier azote, remain in atmosphere, in its normal state, 

 approximately in the proportion of 8/ and 16%, not- 

 withstanding the enormous out-put of these-gases going 

 on in the vegetable world. By this means we can de- 

 termine the natural force of these gases for, by dividing 



