In addition to the gases named, the air contains small amounts of many other substances,—argon, nitric acid, ammonia, ozone, xenon, krypton, and neon; as well as organic matter, germs, and dust in suspension. Over the land it contains sulphates in minute quantities, and over the sea and near the seashore salt left from the evaporated spray.
The proportion of each component of the atmosphere by volume of the total atmosphere is different from its proportion by weight. The percentages for the more abundant gases are as follows:
| By Volume | By Weight | |
|---|---|---|
| Nitrogen | 78.04 | 75.46 |
| Oxygen | 20.99 | 23.19 |
| Argon | 0.94 | 1.30 |
| Carbon dioxide | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| 100.00 | 100.00 | |
Nitrogen. Its principal functions are to dilute the oxygen and to furnish food to vegetation. It is inert and does not manifest many marked chemical affinities. Its lack of activity is shown by the fact that it will neither support combustion nor burn.
Oxygen. Oxygen, unlike nitrogen, is an active element that readily enters into chemical combination with many other elements, and it is second in quantity to nitrogen. With hydrogen it constitutes eight ninths, by weight, of water; combined with other elements it constitutes forty to fifty per cent. of the crust of the earth. It burns so readily that were it not greatly diluted by an inert gas like nitrogen it would be difficult if not impossible to stop a conflagration when once started. It is the vitalizing principle in all forms of life. By its chemical union with carbon in the tissues of plants and animals it develops the energy manifested in their movements.
In the free air up to about seven miles high there is no variation in the proportion of oxygen. But variations of marked importance to health and life occur in places where ventilation is restricted, and especially where living creatures exist in closed rooms, and where combustion occurs in confined places. The following variations in percentages by volume were found in careful analyses by Robert Angus Smith: On the seashore of Scotland, 20.99; open places in London, 20.95; in a small room where a petroleum lamp had been burning six hours, 20.83; pit of a theater at 11:30 P.M., 20.74; in a court room, 20.65; in mine pits, 20.14. He took samples from one mine that showed 18.27, the candles going out when the amount had decreased to 18.50.
The absorption of oxygen by putrid matter and by living beings in the process of breathing, and the giving out of carbon dioxide by both explain the deficiency of oxygen that is found over large cities, which is more marked when the air is moving but little and where the city is located in a depression or near swampy lands.
Both animals and plants inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide with the unchanged nitrogen. The process automatically proceeds both night and day. It should not be confused with the opposite action of plants under the influence of sunlight in taking in and decomposing carbon dioxide and expelling pure oxygen.
Carbon Dioxide. It forms the chief food supply of all green-leaved plants. It is as necessary to the life of vegetation as is oxygen in the supporting of animal life. In the ratio of seventy-seven to one hundred there is less of this gas present in the atmosphere in the winter than in the summer; there also is a diurnal maximum and minimum. In the open country the amount averages about 0.035 per cent. by volume. In cities the amount is considerably greater, frequently rising to 0.07, and at times to 0.10 when the wind velocity is too low to scatter the excess amount that accumulates near the ground. Any quantity in excess of 0.06 per cent., especially if combined with the organic matter exhaled from the lungs and from the pores of the skin by animals and man, is injurious to health. Angus Smith found as much as 0.32 per cent. in crowded theaters, and 2.50 in mines. The latter amount soon would destroy animal life.
Vegetation, in addition to the inhalation of oxygen and the expiration of carbon dioxide at all hours, absorbs the latter during the day, and under the influence of sunlight the green granular matter that constitutes the chlorophyll of the cells of the leaves decomposes it, the plant retaining the carbon and giving out the oxygen. Because of the absence of sunshine the chemical activities of the plant are altered at night and the absorption of carbon dioxide ceases; therefore over the land the maximum amount occurs during the nighttime. This gas is dissolved in sea water and given off with a rise in temperature, which causes the maximum amount over oceans to occur at midday.