in the Proportion of Oxygen in the Atmosphere. 431 
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that these analyses show 
that sometimes the deficiency of oxygen observed in the atmos 
phere at such latitudes as fifty-two, forty-eight, and forty-two 
degrees, may amount to 0004 or 0-005. en we must either 
Suppose that not very seldom there might be observed within 
the tropics immense volumes of air in which the deficiency 
should be several times as great as this, or we must abandon 
the hypothesis in question. . 
If processes of oxidation preponderate over processes of re- 
duction within the tropics, there must be a transportation of 
organic matter from colder climates toward the equator, there 
to be oxidized, but 
. No such amount of transportation as is required by the 
hypothesis takes place through the air. For, in the first place, 
xpe 
8 causes, though a very large number of determinations has 
een : 
4. The transportation of organic matter required by the 
theory does not take place by the waters of the globe. If 
Jolly’s hypothesis is true a very large part of the organic mat- 
ter returned to the air in the form of carbonic acid must 
supposed to be dissolved or suspended in the water which flows 
from the land into the sea, to be brought by ocean currents to 
the equatorial parts of the ocean, and there to be at last 
oxidized. 
* It may be noticed that this supposition would permit us to 
y PP 
explain the removal of oxygen from the air without the restor- 
ation of a corresponding volume of carbonic acid to the same 
volume of air, by assuming that the oxidation takes place in 
the waters of the ocean while near the equator, but that the 
carbonie acid there produced is restored to the air but slowly, 
and therefore is not restored to the volume of air which 
afforded the oxygen. 
