the one taken from the mountain summit, the other from the ocean level.

The enormous quantity of nitrogen serves but to dilute the oxygen, adapting it to the delicate tissues of the lungs of animals and to the purposes of combustion. Were the atmosphere pure oxygen, no fire once lighted could be extinguished, and iron would burn freely as wood now does in common air.

Besides these, there are substances accidently present in the atmosphere, especially near the ground, which in the form of gaseous miasmatic contagion, exercise a noxious influence on animal organization. Infusoria and minute particles of mineral and vegetable substances are also held in suspension in the atmosphere. This vast aerial ocean is never at rest. It has its gulf streams, its aerial currents, real air rivers, and is ever rolling its restless tides from the sea to the land, and from the land back over the waters. The upper and lower strata usually move in opposite directions. Aerial storms usually move in vast circles with a diameter of from two to five hundred miles, one arc upon the land and another on the sea, rushing always from right to left. The reason that carbonic acid gas accumulates, not to a dangerous amount during the winter sleep of vegetation, is thus accounted for. Currents of warm air, rich in oxygen, roll in from the tropics for the supply of the breathing animals of the higher zones, whilst opposite currents of cold air, dense with an accumulation of carbonic acid run steadily from all wintry climes, bearing an exhaustless supply of carbonaceous food for the luxurious and ever growing vegetable organism of equatorial lands.

This atmospheric envelope, like a huge sponge, rarified by heat, absorbs water in enormous quantities from oceans and lakes, then bearing these watery treasures over continents and mountains, under the condensing power of cold, pours them out in rain, snow and hail, dew and vapor, on the plains and mountain sides. The heated atmosphere of summer holds a much larger quantity of watery vapor than the condensed air of winter, yet it is in the cold months of the year that the moisture of the atmosphere is the greatest.

The air is far from being colorless, for we are really looking into its azure depths, when we are admiring the blue canopy we

call the sky, or taking cognizance of the tint on the distant hills. There is air in water, yet not like that surrounding the earth. Water exposed to the atmosphere absorbs a much larger proportion of oxygen than of nitrogen, an arrangement by which fish obtain the requisite supply of oxygen from a small quantity of air.

We now approach a branch of this subject comparatively new and exceedingly interesting to one desiring to penetrate nature's

secrets.

Two other gaseous substances pertaining to the atmosphere, which undoubtedly exert an important influence over animal existence, remain to be examined.

Pure oxygen undergoes a remarkable modification when subjected to a series of electric discharges. It acquires more active properties, emits a peculiar odor and effects oxidations beyond the power of ordinary oxygen. The peculiar odor, noticeable in the air after the passage of a lightning bolt, is due to the formation of this gas. Ozone is oxygen condensed; three volumes of oxygen forming two volumes of ozone. It is absent from places densely populated and present in the pure country air. It is more abundant in winter than in summer, in cloudy than in clear weather, by night than by day, and is especially plentiful during a heavy fall of dew and in storms of snow. The bleaching qualities of new fallen snow are due to the presence of ozone. This gas is highly irritating to delicate lungs, and in large quantities may cause epidemics of catarrh, colds and influenza. Notwithstanding, its general influence is probably beneficial to animal existence, as it oxidizes and destroys many volatile organic substances prejudicial to health, and thus by removing infectious matter from the air, extirpate the germs of epidemic diseases.

But the marvels of the air multiply. A gas concealed from man for ages calls vigorously for recognition, and willing or unwilling we are constrained to consider the claims of autozone. It seems to be produced simultaneously with ozone, and is like that, a modification of oxygen gas. It has even been discovered in the fluor spar of bararia. The odor of autozone is exceedingly disagreeable, that of ozone merely pungent and irritating. Unlike

ozone, autozone changes at once to oxygen under the influence of heat. From dry electrified air autozone speedly disappears. But the remarkable distinction of this new aspirant for honor is its cloud-compelling power. Autozone sways its scepter over the waters, and lo, by a wave of its magic wand, fogs arise and vapors condense to clouds. We have thus a god of mists, whom the denizens of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes might do well to propitiate. That the forces of autozone are not of the fancy merely, we can easily prove. We e pass a volume of air loaded with this gas through a quantity of water, and lo, an artificial mist is at once produced. Let the blind old bard of Scio sing of the "cloud-compelling Jupiter." Modern science has imprisoned the true Ariel of the clouds, causing him, Samson-like, to make sport for the human denizens of the air. The lover of the fragrant "Havana" little realizes what imp from the air depths artistically curls the white cloud of smoke which issues from his mouth. The artist delighting in the white smoke wreaths gracefully rising from the cottage chimney, little realized that the white smoke of the chimney owes its very existence to the presence of autozone, which always appears in large quantities whenthere is low-smouldering combustion, and with moisture forms the characteristic cloud.

Probably all clouds and mists owe their existence to this powerful gas. It unites chemically with water forming the peroxide of Hydrogen. Now this air of ours is at times filled with noxious matters unfriendly to all breathing animals, and kindly nature removes the dangerous atoms by frequent washings.

Heavy rains clean the air of malarious germs and of mineral and vegetable dust, also washing from the atmosphere the nitric acid formed by electric discharges and the carbonate of ammonia, which, percolating through the soils until they reach the rootlets of plants, supply the nitrogenous substances, which in grains and fruit from the food of which the flesh of animals is made and which the leaves of plants are incapable of absorbing directly from the air.

It is thus seen that the atmosphere is the marvelous conservator of animal and vegetable life, the vast storehouse from which the food of all living organisms is derived. On this we

live and breathe, and of this we require a most bountiful and constantly renewed supply. Each hour we drain these rich treasures from the air, and return what is poison to us, but the welcome food to all growing plants, which grateful for our liberality abundantly repay the loan in gifts of vital oxygen. It is this which carries health on its wings, and like an aerial scape-goat, bears from our dwellings the seeds of disease. How many of our houses, with their double windows and air-tight compartments are made simply the depositories of carbonic acid gas, in which children languish and men and women linger out a painful though brief existence?

When shall we learn to extend a hearty welcome to the sweet airs of heaven, which, even when chilled with winter's frosts, bear to our firesides treasures no wealth can buy. We have but to open to the waiting guest and treat him with hospitable warmth, after his cold voyage from other climes, and daily, his will prove an angel's visit, leaving blessings which shall render home an Eden. When will the architects of our dwellings, churches and school houses remember that the good Father has given us an ocean of diluted oxygen from 40 to 100 miles in depth, and offers this world of treasure a free gift to the dwellers of earth?

GRAPE GROWING.

BY GEN. N. F. LUND, MADISON.

Before the Northern Wisconsin Agricultural and Mechanical Convention, at Appleton, March 5, 1874.

EARLY HISTORY.

History goes not back to the time when man first planted the vine; and beyond the Sacred Records its first culture is shrouded in allegories, myths and fables; the only records that have come down to us being found in the poems and sculptures af antiquity. In the mythology of the ancients it had its special protecting deity, and Bacchus, the god of wine, was crowned with ivy and vine leaves. The shield of Achilles represented a vinegathering; and on the oldest Greek tombs are found pictures representing the vine-harvest.

It is first introduced to our notice when Noah planted a vinyard and drank of the wine; and as one of the articles of provision hospitably offered by Melchizedek to Abraham, and the Sacred Writings abound in allusions to the vine and its fruit. Herodotus speaks of its culture in Egypt, and Pliny writes of the natural history of the vine. It is doubtless as old as the human race, and its cultivation was probably amongst the earliest efforts of human industry; while from the remotest records of antiquity we learn that the vine has been celebrated as the type of plenty and the symbol of happiness.

The country where the vine was first cultivated cannot be positively known, but is believed to have been the hilly region on the southern shores of the Caspian sea, in the Persian province of Ghilan; from which country it probably spread across the continent, to its eastern limit by the sea. The record tells us that the Phoenicians carried it to the island of the Mediterranean, whence it spread to Italy, Spains and France and thence over Europe. It was early brought to the colonies, having been planted in Virginia before 1620. The Spaniards carried it to Mexico, and