"
[The theory of exhausted receivers is, in our opinion, worthy only of
the childhood of science, when chemistry and astronomy were alchemy and
astrology, and people would believe anything. In this enlightened age of
the universal subscription-paper, exhausted givers are familiar objects,
but a receiver who finds the labors of his calling excessive is as
non-existent as the harpy, his mythological prototype.]
"7. In regard to the extent to which the compression of air has been
actually carried, he tells us that 'Brockhaus says that air has as yet
been compressed only into _one-eighth of its original bulk_.' Is
it possible that a writer on Meteorology is unacquainted with the
well-known experiments of Dulong and Arago, and the more recent ones
of Regnault, in which the compression was three times the amount here
stated, or that he requires to be referred to those of Natterer, who, by
a powerful condensing apparatus, has lately compressed _seven hundred
and twenty-six volumes of air into a single volume_?"
[Any man who has succeeded in condensing seven hundred and twenty-six
volumes into one deserves the applause of the reading public. We
trust M. Natterer will extend his benevolent labors to all the great
libraries. With the most perfect apparatus of compression, however, we
doubt if contemporary literature will yield anything like so high an
average as 1 in 726.]
"8. In the paragraphs devoted to the optical relations of the
atmosphere, our author has shown a happy faculty for making his subject
obscure.
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