ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 715 



led to think, and only acted on by forces from without. It must have inher- 

 ent or latent forces within itself, joined with the solid earth by influences 

 acting and re-acting, and constant, to satisfactorily account for all these 

 phenomena. The earth and the atmosphere are no more separate enti- 

 ties than are the solid earth and the fluid water. They arc to be viewed as 

 blended in their relations, because all are of a common origin — obeying a 

 common law, controlled and perpetuated by kindred forces — all but the 

 same matter in varying forms. 



As facts contradict the theory upon which phenomena of the atmos- 

 phere have been accounted for in the past, we must seek hypotheses in har- 

 mony with the facts. As experiments have always proceeded upon the old 

 theory, they have been accredited when reconcilable with it, and when not 

 have been set aside as not understood, rather than as needing inquiry be- 

 cause they differed with or could not be combined with the theory. 



As an illustration of this it is only necessary to refer to nitrogen, which 

 ie disposed of by the simple declaration — "its office is unknown" — when it 

 comprises 76.7 per cent, of the entire volume of air. Our entire knowledge, 

 save here and there a shadow, of life and its manifestations is confined to 

 the part played by oxygen, which is but 23.2 per cent. Can we call it 

 science when this is the extent of our knowledge? Does not reason tell us 

 that life, existing in a fluid ocean, finding no office essential to its development, 

 growth and sustenance from three-fourths of the volume of the element it 

 inhabits — is an unsatisfactory solution? 



How came the atmosphere ? ought to be our first inquiry. And how is 

 it maintained to perform its uses? should be the next. 



The solar sytem is a fact. It obeys the same laws ; it is controlled by 

 the same forces; they are the same in all its parts — must be so — because of 

 a common origin and a co-existence. This being so, the conclusion is ine- 

 vitable that the elements composing it — its matter — are alike in all its parts 

 — differing not in essence but in degree. As its members differ in size, these 

 forces operating to the present, have only produced diff'erent states of mat- 

 ter. The entire system must have had a simultaneous origin, for its 

 mechanism has never changed within the knowledge of man, nor has he 

 found evidence that gives color to anything otherwise. Orbits have been 

 eternal. Any difference in conditions must then have arisen from the dif- 

 fering volumes. 



We are ignorant of what we call space — its forces, if any, and the 

 influences flowing from it — and are thus confined to what we can discover 

 of the various members of the system — or family of worlds. As the solar 

 system is a unit, its origin the same, its matter identical, its laws uniform — 

 its formation must have been so, and so of its development. One error has 

 been that we take the earth as a globe of matter, and in contrast with the 

 life upon it — dead. Is not this an error at the beginning? If, considering 

 it a living things full of pulsating and circulating forces, being acted on and 

 re-acting, do we not start with a clear apprehension of its phenomena ? That 



