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answers to a very insignificant opposition whereas a 

 centripetal force of attraction being more or less magne- 

 tic, must act with noticeable difference on raising the 

 feet from comact with the earth. Every-one must agree 

 that if the alleged central attraction was so powerful as 

 to maintain the animal creation on its legs in relation to 

 the sun feet upwards through the night, its force could 

 not be by any means a negligeable quantity but must 

 exercise at all times a most imperative control over our 

 actions. A man lying flat upon the ground in order to 

 rise must overcome, a force ten times greater than that 

 which he resists when standing on his feet. But in reality 

 the pressure which binds us to the earth is of another 

 kind, the pressure of the atmospheric nitrogen into which 

 we were born, in which we live and out of which, as 

 experiment within the earth's crust and above the earth's 

 clouds has clearly proved, we cannot manage to exist. 

 Sinking too deep the pressure is too strong; rising too 

 high it is too weak; there is too much azote or too little; 

 and human organisms notably the aural organs, skin 

 and mucous membranes suffer. 



The next question is: Does our earth need this atmos- 

 pheric envelope; and if so, why? 



Of course our atmosphere is needed. The earth moves 

 in space at a speed of 28 versts a second, and, besides 

 this circular forward movement, rotates around its own 

 axis. The motion of its surface equals 30 versts a 

 second. 



In earlier chapters I showed that the universe is full 

 of oxo-hydrogen. Suppose for example that the speed of 

 a hurricane is equal to one verst a second can we ima- 

 gine the consequences to our earth of exposure to a cur- 

 rent thirty times as swift? Nothing would remain on the 

 surface of the globe and the planet from a sphere would 

 become a spindle. The first and chief function of azote 

 is then to preserve the earth's outward form. In this 

 respect it reminds us of the mucilaginous coating of a 

 fish. Fish by the natural conditions of their life have often 



