ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS PHENOMENA. 71 9 



rain, the snow and the dews, tella us at once how it is maintained in its pro- 

 portion in the air we breathe. And now we find ozone, which perhaj)s of 

 all the elements best illustrates the circulation of the earth and air. It i:-s 

 believed to be but a condensed or concentrated form of oxygen itself, com.- 

 pelled by a laboratory more powerful than any of man, and which has it-* 

 seat in the earth. And it is the best illustration, because : (1) It is more 

 abundant in the country than in cities and towns ; (2) Its quantity is great- 

 est in spring, less in the summer, decreasing in autumn, and least in winter. 

 (3) It is most readily detected on rainy days, or after any great atmospheric; 

 disturbance. 



Do not these facts point unvaryingly to the mutual action between thd 

 earth and atmosphere? Ozone is most abundant in the country, because 

 the exhalation in cities is interrupted by houses, pavements and hard beaten 

 surfaces. It is most abundant in spring, when the pores of the earth have 

 been left open by the retiring frost, and it decreases in summer and autumn a*4 

 these conditions become less, and least in winter when the whole face of the 

 earth approximates the condition of cities. And it is more largely present 

 after great atmospheric disturbances, because it is then that the effort ot 

 nature to restore the disturbed equilibrium is most active. 



And lastly, we have the phenomena of epidemic disease, which is only 

 to be explained by atmospheric causes — which are not carried by winds 

 alone, because often traveling in the teeth of winds, and crossing continenta 

 in the very face of the trades, and on contrary sides of the globe, maintain- 

 ing their same unvarying features. 



That greater quantities of nitrogen, that element of the unknown office, 

 than even now, once filled thejiir is evident, as well as that carbonic acid 

 was once in greater volume — ^as the nitre beds referred to attest. Because: 

 we cannot with our glass retorts and furnaces harness this obdurate ele- 

 ment, is no I'eason to conclude that the power which holds the solar systera 

 in its grasp, and which in the laboratory of the vSun evolves its iron into 

 air, which sends vast globes in eternal rounds, with velocities that baffle 

 imagination, yet holds them with the rein of mathematical obedience — that 

 it is not equal to the task. Why stand we in awe of the giant i^ower of 

 nitrogen when imprisoned in its cruder furms of gunpowder and its kin- 

 dred explosives,, as it shakes the solid earth? and refuse to hear it wheu 

 struck by the power of this occult force in midheaven, speaking to us in 

 the voice of thunder, or when touched by the same power in the caverns of 

 the earth admonishes us of its pervasive presence in all nature through thv^ 

 throes of the earthquake— upheaving mountains and depressing greal; 

 areas of solid land. 



Is it not as patent that these forces are from a common agent, as it i^ 

 that the lava streaming out is glovv'ing because of the presence of its twin 

 element, oxygen ? 



If we will only accept this as probable, how much more rational bo- 

 comes the solution of ail these phenomena, than by the far fetched theory. 



