'rw ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 



METEOROLOGY. 



A.BOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 

 BY HON. R. T. VAN HORN, KANSAS CITY, MO. 



This globe on which we are is the gx-eat mystery. Science tells us that 

 it 18 suspended in space — moving with a velocity that the imagination 

 cannot grasp, it keeps its ceaseless round — bringing its day and its night 

 and its alternating seasons, since the morning of matter; an incomprehen- 

 sible mj^stery that has been the wonder of our humanity, into whose se- 

 crets the intellect of man has delved in all the ages as containing the 

 answer to the question of how and why he exists ? 



With this solid globe, ever present, all pervading, obe^nng the same law 

 as to fixedness and movement, is a fluid ocean, impalpable to sense, that 

 we call the air or atmosphere — a mystery more subtle, more incomprehen- 

 sible than even the seemingly solid mass of matter it envelopes. In it all the 

 jjhenomena of life arc manifested, and from it all life exists or is possible. 

 It is the theatre, so to speak, on which transpire those displays of the ele- 

 7nents which charm by their beauty, confound by their mysteiy or awe by 

 their majesty and power. The zephj^r and the storm are equally its chil- 

 dren ; the glories of sunset entrance us by their coloring, while the glow 

 of the aurora appeals to the weird sense of the supernatural by the rapid 

 shifting of its mysterious scenery. It spreads above us its canopy of blue, 

 fit field for the god of day ; at night it wraps the Earth in a robe resplen- 

 dant with shining jewels. It is, too, the same air when the curtain of the 

 storm hides this glory of the day or beauty of the night, proclaiming its 

 angry power by its lightnings and thunder. 



It comes also to reviving nature in the gentle breath of the warming 

 south wind, kissing the flowers as they bend their congratulations to its 

 coming; and on its wings comes the north Avind, congealing life in the ele- 

 ments for their winter's rest — the one messenger of life and of death. By 

 it the bracing breezes of health are scattered over the. earth, and in its 

 train pestilence stalks from continent to continent, the terror-invested mys- 

 tery that chills the nations with dread. What is this wonderful thing?— 

 so common, yet so little known — and whence was it, or from whence is it? 



Science tells us it is a material thing — that it is composed of elements 

 that can be weighed and measured, and that it has all the qualities of 

 matter — can be compressed or expanded. In short, speaking chemically, it 

 is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, carbonic acid, ammonia, ozone and vapor 

 of water — mainly of the first two, in the proportions of four volumes of 

 nitrogen to one ol oxygen. Its weight we may place in round figures at 

 fifteen pounds to the square inch. Its height, judging from the barometer 



