HOW PASCAL WEIGHED THE ATMOSPHERE.
Pascal’s treatise on the weight of the whole mass of air forms the basis of the modern science of Pneumatics. In order to prove that the mass of air presses by its weight on all the bodies which it surrounds, and also that it is elastic and compressible, he carried a balloon, half-filled with air, to the top of the Puy de Dome, a mountain about 500 toises above Clermont, in Auvergne. It gradually inflated itself as it ascended, and when it reached the summit it was quite full, and swollen as if fresh air had been blown into it; or, what is the same thing, it swelled in proportion as the weight of the column of air which pressed upon it was diminished. When again brought down it became more and more flaccid, and when it reached the bottom it resumed its original condition. In the nine chapters of which the treatise consists, Pascal shows that all the phenomena and effects hitherto ascribed to the horror of a vacuum arise from the weight of the mass of air; and after explaining the variable pressure of the atmosphere in different localities and in its different states, and the rise of water in pumps, he calculates that the whole mass of air round our globe weighs 8,983,889,440,000,000,000 French pounds.—North-British Review, No. 2.
It seems probable, from many indications, that the greatest height at which visible clouds ever exist does not exceed ten miles; at which height the density of the air is about an eighth part of what it is at the level of the sea.—Sir John Herschel.