In the extremes of atmospheric temperature, this fluid is found to exist in the extremes of its positive and negative conditions. The contrast is by some supposed to exist in the seasons of winter and summer, in proportions as 13 to 1, (heretofore regarded as quantitive).
Note the Functions of this Ocean.
This fluid is indeed the vital principle, upon which all life, animate and inanimate, depends. The necessity for frequent respirations is occasioned by the imperative demands of the system for this agent. As before intimated, the mild and steady light which illumines the earth in its day-season is owing to the action of the active fluid of the cone-space upon the static fluid of the atmosphere. The untempered force of the former might not be endured. The pale and steady light of the moon and planets is due to a like reaction through the same agencies.
The relations which the present known constituents of the atmosphere sustain to this fluid may not at the present time be estimated.
Not yet fully Comprehended.
"Air," said Sir Lyon Playfair, "is the most familiar of substances; the first with which an infant becomes acquainted on entrance into the world, and in death, the last to be given up; yet, strange to say, its nature and constitution have only become partially understood within the past century, and even now scientific knowledge can only be regarded as on the threshold of the subject."
The novelty and the assurance of the concluding lines of the above quotation would, at a comparatively recent date, have excited in the reader a great astonishment. We had supposed that the constituents, and the functions of our atmosphere were very well understood, that little, if anything, could be learned by further investigation. Yet the revelations which are now being made show the assertion of Sir Lyon Playfair to be almost prophetic.
The vito-magnetic, the most important ingredient, has scarcely been referred to in any formula of its constitution. This constituent as previously stated, forms the bulk of the atmosphere, and upon it depends the principal performance of its varied functions. More vital than oxygen, without it life could not be sustained for an hour.