214 Our Atmosphere and the Ether of Space. 



extends to chemistry, and it is far from easy to say what con- 

 stitutes oxygen, for example. In zoology the idea of heredi- 

 tariness, or common descent, comes into the species idea ; in 

 chemistry identity of constitution and properties is sufficient. 

 But is ozone identical in constitution with oxygen, of which 

 it is called an allotropic form ? If M. Soret is right* in affirm- 

 ing that it is composed of a plurality of oxygen atoms arranged 

 in a particular way, we must be either prepared to regard it 

 as another substance, or to deny that the mode in which atoms 

 are aggregated and the special properties thus developed, give 

 rise to different species of substances. It may be said that 

 ozone is not after all sufficiently unlike oxygen to require a 

 separate name ; but what of antozone ? Schonbein considers 

 that when one portion of oxygen is converted into ozone 

 another portion passes into the state of antozone, which differs 

 in properties from ordinary oxygen and from ozone. Antozone 

 and ozone he considers in opposite polar conditions, and that 

 when they come together they neutralize each other and 

 produce ordinary oxygen. If so they act like distinct and 

 different substances, exhibiting an affinity for each other. 



M. Hansteen's supposition that the ether, or fluid conceived 

 to exist in space, is like the upper atmosphere of our earth is 

 worth consideration ; but if so, that upper atmosphere must be 

 capable of the requisite attenuation without being changed into 

 another substance. Is it not a more probable supposition that 

 however slowly the process may take place, all the bodies that 

 swim in space contribute to the space atmosphere or ether, 

 which would thus be composed of the most volatile" and 

 attenuated forms the materials of the various globes can assume 

 when their normal cohesive and affinity forces are diminished 

 or over-balanced by repulsive forces or new affinities? 



Does it not seem improbable that each globo should retain for 

 ever all the particles that it started with ? Is not a circulation 

 of matter more consonant with analogy ? Why should the 

 space atmosphere not only be added to, but taken from ? Can 

 our sun and all other suns be burning, or condensing it ? The 

 enormous temperature usually assigned to the solar photosphere 

 may dissociate ordinary compounds, and developo powerful 

 affinities between photosphere matt or and the spaco atmos- 

 phere, and if it condensed millions of cubic miles with sufficient 

 velocity, enormous beat would be produced. 



With reference to the ether, or spaco atmosphere, it may be 

 observed that the quantity of matter which is contained in a 

 given volume of it, men/ not afford any measure of its resistance 

 to planetary motion. In a paper on molecular mechanics, by 

 the Rev. Joseph Bayma, published in the Proceedings of the 



* Sec iNTBLUiCCAL OllSEliYEB, Vol. iv. p. 308. 



