Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Have
Ascertained The Uniform Mixture Of Atmospheric Air To Be About 0.
003, Only To An Elevation Of 3000 Toises; Consequently Not Beyond
The Last Stratum Of Fleecy Clouds.
It may be admitted that, in the
first revolutions of the globe, gaseous substances, which yet
remain unknown to
Us, have risen towards that region through which
the falling-stars pass; but accurate experiments, made upon
mixtures of gases which have not the same specific gravity, show
that there is no reason for supposing a superior stratum of the
atmosphere entirely different from the inferior strata. Gaseous
substances mingle and penetrate each other on the least movement;
and a uniformity of their mixture may have taken place in the lapse
of ages, unless we believe them to possess a repulsive action of
which there is no example in those substances we can subject to our
observations. Farther, if we admit the existence of particular
aerial fluids in the inaccessible regions of luminous meteors, of
falling-stars, bolides, and the Aurora Borealis; how can we
conceive why the whole stratum of those fluids does not at once
ignite, but that the gaseous emanations, like the clouds, occupy
only limited spaces? How can we suppose an electrical explosion
without some vapours collected together, capable of containing
unequal charges of electricity, in air, the mean temperature of
which is perhaps 25 degrees below the freezing point of the
centigrade thermometer, and the rarefaction of which is so
considerable, that the compression of the electrical shock could
scarcely disengage any heat?
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