What would
Johnstone, Boussingault, Liebig, and the other agricultural chemists say
to this?"
[For complete proof on this head, be struck by lightning. For
ourselves, we are convinced, and would rather have some other head
taken for an experiment by way of illustration. But any of our
readers who is unsatisfied has only to place himself in front of a
lightning-express-train with an ordinary conductor. To insure being
struck, let the experimenter provide himself amply with patent
safety-rods. At least, this result is pretty sure in houses, and is
worth trying out of doors.]
"In the same connection he characterizes nitrogen as a substance 'not
condensible under fifty atmospheres,' leaving the reader to infer
that the preceding ingredient on the list, oxygen, is condensible
(liquefiable) within that limit of pressure, and that nitrogen becomes
liquid at or above it; whereas neither oxygen nor nitrogen has ever yet
been compressed into a liquid, although a force of more than _fifty
times fifty_ atmospheres has been brought to act upon them."
[We consider an experiment requiring twenty-five hundred atmospheres,
when the thermometer marks 93 deg. in the shade, indictable at common law.
To desire more than one, under such circumstances, is unreasonable, and
even wicked.]
"4. In referring to the Thermo-barometer as a means of measuring
heights, the writer confounds the late Professor Edward Forbes with
Professor James D.
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