"Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air besides these."
"If you mean that the air accidentally, or even permanently, holds in solution a certain quantity of water, or a portion of carbonic acid gas, and possibly some particles of dust arising from terrestrial bodies, then I grant your premises."
"No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is composed of three distinct elements."
"Possibly; but if so, the air in question is not known to chemists."
"These three elements are oxygen, hydrogen, and insects."
"Ah, insects! I might have fancied you were driving at some hypothesis of that sort."
"I intend to communicate this discovery to the first learned society we fall in with."
"In the Pacific Ocean?"
"Yes: there or elsewhere."
"I always understood," observed Willis, "that air was a sort of cloud, one and indivisible."