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210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
52
Even
a
short
distance
from
the
earth,
however,
at
the
top
of
a
high
mountain,
the
air
becomes
lighter,
because
it
has
less
weight
of
atmosphere
above
it,
and
people
who
go
up
in
balloons
often
have
great
difficulty
in
breathing,
because
the
air
is
so
thin
and
light.
In
1804
a
Frenchman,
named
Gay-Lussac,
went
up
four
miles
and
a
half
in
a
balloon,
and
brought
down
some
air;
and
he
found
that
it
was
much
less
heavy
than
the
same
quantity
of
air
taken
close
down
to
the
earth,
showing
that
it
was
much
thinner,
or
rarer,
as
it
is
called;*
and
when,
in
1862,
Mr.
Glaisher
and
Mr.
Coxwell
went
up
five
miles
and
a
half,
Mr.
Glaisher's
veins
began
to
swell,
and
his
head
grew
dizzy,
and
he
fainted.
The
air
was
too
thin
for
him
to
breathe
enough
in
at
a
time,
and
it
did
not
press
heavily
enough
on
the
drums
of
his
ears
and
the
veins
of
his
body.
He
would
have
died
if
Mr.
Coxwell
had
not
quickly
let
off
some
of
the
gas
in
the
balloon,
so
that
it
sank
down
into
denser
air.
(*100
cubic
inches
near
the
earth
weighed
31
grains,
while
the
same
quantity
taken
at
four
and
a
half
miles
up
in
the
air
weighed
only
12
grains,
or
two-
fifths
of
the
weight.)
And
now
comes
another
very
interesting
question.
If
the
air
gets
less
and
less
dense
as
it
is
farther
from
the
earth,
where
does
it
stop
altogether?
We
cannot
go
up
to
find
out,
because
we
should
die
long
before
we
reached
the
limit;
and
for
a
long
time
we
had
to
guess
about
how
high
the
atmosphere
probably
was,
and
it
was
generally
supposed
not
to
be
more
than
fifty
miles.
But
lately,
some
curious
bodies,
which
we
should
have
never
suspected
would
be
useful
to
us
in
this
way,
have
let
us
into
the
secret
of
the
height
of
the
atmosphere.
These
bodies
are
the
meteors,
or
falling
stars.
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