The Fairy-Land of Science

Let us for a moment imagine that we can see all that we know exists between us and the sun. First, we have the fine ether across which the sunbeams travel, beating down upon our earth with immense force, so that in the sandy desert they are like a burning fire. Then we have the coarser atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen atoms hanging in this ether, and bending the minute sun- waves out of their direct path. But they do very little to hinder them on their way, and this is why in very dry countries the sun's heat is so intense. The rays beat down mercilessly, and nothing opposes them. Lastly, in damp countries we have the larger but still invisible particles of vapour hanging about among the air-atoms. Now, these watery particles, although they are very few (only about one twenty-fifth part of the whole atmosphere), do hinder the sun-waves. For they are very greedy of heat, and though the light-waves pass easily through them, they catch the heat-waves and use them to help themselves to expand. And so, when there is invisible vapour in the air, the sunbeams come to us deprived of some of their heat-waves, and we can remain in the sunshine without suffering from the heat. This is how the water-vapour shields us by day, but by night it is still more useful. During the day our earth and the air near it have been storing up the heat which has been poured down on them, and at night, when the sun goes down, all this heat begins to escape again. Now, if there were no vapour in the air, this heat would rush back into space so rapidly that the ground would become cold and frozen even on a summer's night, and all but the most hardy plants would die. But the vapour which formed a veil against the sun in the day, now forms a still more powerful veil against the escape of the heat by night. It shuts in the heat- waves, and only allows them to make their way slowly upwards from the earth - thus producing for us the soft, balmy nights of summer and preventing all life being destroyed in the winter.