Mrs. B. On the contrary, the air within you, meeting with no external pressure to restrain its elasticity, would distend your body, and at length bursting some of the parts which confined it, put a period to your existence.
Caroline. This weight of the atmosphere, then, which I was so apprehensive would crush me, is, in reality, essential to my preservation.
Emily. I once saw a person cupped, and was told that the swelling of the part under the cup, was produced by taking away from that part, the pressure of the atmosphere; but I could not understand how this pressure produced such an effect.
Mrs. B. The air pump affords us the means of making a great variety of interesting experiments, on the weight, and pressure of the air: some of them you have already seen. Do you not recollect, that in a vacuum produced within the air pump, substances of various weights, fell to the bottom in the same time; why does not this happen in the atmosphere?
Caroline. I remember you told us it was owing to the resistance which light bodies meet with, from the air, during their fall.
Mrs. B. Or, in other words, to the support which they received from the air, and which prolonged the time of their fall. Now, if the air were destitute of weight, how could it support other bodies, or retard their fall?
I shall now show you some other experiments, which illustrate, in a striking manner, both the weight, and elasticity of air. I shall tie a piece of bladder over this glass receiver, which, you will observe, is open at the top as well as below.
Caroline. Why do you wet the bladder first?
Mrs. B. It expands by wetting, and contracts in drying; it is also more soft and pliable when wet, so that I can make it fit better, and when dry, it will be tighter. We must hold it to the fire in order to dry it; but not too near, lest it should burst by sudden contraction. Let us now fix it on the air pump, and exhaust the air from underneath it—you will not be alarmed if you hear a noise?
Emily. It was as loud as the report of a gun, and the bladder is burst! Pray explain how the air is concerned in this experiment.