432 
ELECTRICITY OF THE AIR. 
Trice and Height of French Troop-horses. 
Branches of the Service. 
Height. 
Official 
Trice. 
Mean Purchase 
-price in 
1851. 
1852. 
1853. 
Hands. 
£ 
£ 
S. 
d. 
£ 
•5. 
d. 
i ^ 
s. 
d. 
Reserve. 
15-2 to 15-3 
32 
31 
0 
0 
32 
0 
0 
31 
10 
0 
Cavalry of the Line ... 
15 to ] 5'2 
26 
26 
14 
0 
26 
0 
0 
27 
6 
0 
Light Cavalry . 
]4‘3 to 15 
22 
22 
T8 
0 
23 
2 
0 
22 
16 
0 
Cavalry in Africa . 
— 
14 
14 
13 
4 
14 
0 
0 
14 
13 
10 
Manege (Riding- 
school and horses > 
— 
40 
42 
6 
8 
51 
10 
0 
60 
13 
0 
in training). j 
Officers’ chargers . 
— 
36 
38 
0 
6 
36 
6 
0 
41 
2 
6 
Ditto in Africa. 
20 
20 
15 
6 
26 
0 
0 
20 
10 
0 
Artillery: 
Riding. 
26 
- ■ - 
IS 
0 
0 
2_o 
0 
0 
In Africa. 
12 
12 
0 
12 
13 
0 
Draught-horses . 
15 to 15-2 
22 
27 
12 
0 
- 
21 
15 
0 
Mules. 
14-3 to 15T 
20 
16 
2 
0 
Donkeys . 
8 
— 
— 
Camels . 
mmrn 
8 
■ “ 
■ 
QUETELET ON THE ELECTRICITY OF THE AIR. 
In his important work, ^ Sur la Physique du Globe/ M. 
Quetelet gives a voluminous account of’ the electrical observa¬ 
tions made under his superintendence at Brussels, and devotes 
one section to an explanation of the distribution of the 
electricity of the air, which cannot fail to interest our 
readers, and which we therefore present to them in a condensed 
form. 
M. Quetelet remarks, that were it not for the existence of 
other bodies in celestial space, the terrestrial atmosphere 
would scarcely experience any electrical changes. He fur¬ 
ther tells us that the sun must be regarded as the chief 
exciting and disturbing cause. He regards our atmosphere 
as divided into two layers—the upper one ‘^nearly im¬ 
movable in all its parts, the lower one constantly tra¬ 
versed and stirred up by winds.^^ The upper layer he con¬ 
siders is also divided into two portions—the one, negative, 
equilibrates the positive electricity of the sun and of the 
surrounding space ;* and the other, positive, acts through 
* M. Quetelet adds in a note, “If it is objected that tlie electricity of the 
sun traverses the void without resistance, and that its fluid ought to unite 
with the fluid of the opposite nature which we suppose to exist in the ex¬ 
terior layer of the atmosphere, we might without difficulty admit this hypo- 
