George E. Waring

What is atmospheric air composed of?

In what proportions?

What is the use of nitrogen in air?

Does the atmosphere contain other matters useful to vegetation?

What are they?

Atmospheric air is composed of oxygen and nitrogen. Their proportions are, one part of oxygen to four parts of nitrogen. Oxygen is the active agent in the combustion, decay, and decomposition of organized bodies (those which have possessed animal or vegetable life, that is, organic matter), and others also, in the breathing of animals. Experiments have proved that if the atmosphere consisted of pure oxygen every thing would be speedily destroyed, as the processes of combustion and decay would be greatly accelerated, and animals would be so stimulated that death would soon ensue. The use of the nitrogen in the air is to dilute the oxygen, and thus reduce the intensity of its effect.

Besides these two great elements, the atmosphere contains certain impurities which are of great importance to vegetable growth; these are, carbonic acid, water, ammonia, etc.

CARBONIC ACID.

Carbonic acid is in all probability the only source of the carbon of plants, and consequently is of more importance to vegetation than any other single sort of food. It is a gas, and is not, under natural circumstances, perceptible to our senses. It constitutes about ¹/₂₅₀₀ of the atmosphere, and is found in combination with many substances in nature. Marble, limestone and chalk, are carbonate of lime, or carbonic acid and lime in combination; and carbonate of magnesia is a compound of carbonic acid and magnesia. This gas exists in combination with many other mineral substances, and is contained in all water not recently boiled. Its supply, though small, is sufficient for the purposes of vegetation. It enters the plant in two ways—through the roots in the water which goes to form the sap, and at the leaves, which absorb it from the air in the form of gas. The leaf of the plant seems to have three offices: that of absorbing carbonic acid from the atmosphere—that of assisting in the chemical preparation of the sap—and that of evaporating its water. If we examine leaves with a microscope we shall find that some have as many as 170,000 openings, or mouths, in a square inch; others have a much less number. Usually, the pores on the under side of the leaf absorb the carbonic acid. This absorptive power is illustrated when we apply the lower side of a cabbage leaf to a wound, as it draws strongly—the other side of the leaf has no such action. Young sprouts may have the power of absorbing and decomposing carbonic acid.

The roots of plants terminate at their ends in minute spongioles, or mouths for the absorption of fluids containing nutriment. In these fluids there exist greater or less quantities of carbonic acid, and a considerable amount of this gas enters into the circulation of the plants and is carried to those parts where it is required for decomposition. Plants, under favorable circumstances, may thus obtain about one-third of their carbon.

Carbonic acid, it will be recollected, consists of carbon and oxygen, while it supplies only carbon to the plant. It is therefore necessary that it be divided, or decomposed, and that the carbon be retained while the oxygen is sent off again into the atmosphere, to reperform its office of uniting with carbon. This decomposition takes place in the green parts of plants and only under the influence of daylight. It is not necessary that the sun shine directly on the leaf or green shoot, but this causes a more rapid decomposition of carbonic acid, and consequently we find that plants which are well exposed to the sun's rays make the most rapid growth.

The fact that light is essential to vegetation explains the conditions of different latitudes, which, so far as the assimilation of carbon is concerned, are much the same. At the Equator the days are but about twelve hours long. Still, as the growth of plants is extended over eight or nine months of the year, the duration of daylight is sufficient for the requirements of a luxuriant vegetation. At the Poles, on the contrary, the summer is but two or three months long; here, however, it is daylight all summer, and plants from continual growth develop themselves in that short time.

It will be recollected that carbonic acid constitutes but about ¹/₂₅₀₀ of the air, yet, although about one half of all the vegetable matter in the world is derived from this source, as well as all of the carbon required by the growth of plants, its proportion in the atmosphere is constantly about the same. In order that we may understated this, it becomes necessary for us to consider the means by which it is formed. Carbon, by the aid of fire, is made to unite with oxygen, and always when bodies containing carbon are burnt with the presence of atmospheric air, the oxygen of that air unites with the carbon, and forms carbonic acid. The same occurs when bodies containing carbon decay, as this is simply a slower burning and produces the same results. The respiration (or breathing) of animals is simply the union of the carbon of the blood with the oxygen of the air drawn into the lungs, and their breath, when thrown out, always contains carbonic acid. From this we see that the reproduction of this gas is the direct effect of the destruction of all organized bodies, whether by fire, decay, or consumption by animals.

Furnaces are its wholesale manufactories. Every cottage fire is continually producing a new supply, and the blue smoke issuing from the cottage-chimney, as described by so many poets, possesses a new beauty, when we reflect that besides indicating a cheerful fire on the hearth, it contains materials for making food for the cottager's tables and new faggots for his fire. The wick of every burning lamp draws up the carbon of the oil to be made into carbonic acid at the flame. All matters in process of combustion, decay, fermentation, or putrefaction, are returning to the atmosphere those constituents, which they obtained from it. Every living animal, even to the smallest insect, by respiration, spends its life in the production of this material necessary to the growth of plants, and at death gives up its body in part for such formation by decay.

Thus we see that there is a continual change from the carbon of plants to air, and from air back to plants, or through them to animals. As each dollar in gold that is received into a country permanently increases its amount of circulating medium, and each dollar sent out permanently decreases it until returned, so the carbonic acid sent into the atmosphere by burning, decay, or respiration, becomes a permanent stock of constantly changeable material, until it shall be locked up for a time, as in a house which may last for centuries, or in an oak tree which may stand for thousands of years. Still, at the decay of either of these, the carbon which they contain must be again resolved into carbonic acid.

The coal-beds of Pennsylvania are mines of carbon once abstracted from the atmosphere by plants. In these coal-beds are often found fern leaves, toads, whole trees, and in short all forms of organized matter. These all existed as living things before the great floods, and at the breaking away of the barriers of the immense lakes, of which our present lakes were merely the deep holes in their beds, they were washed away and deposited in masses so great as to take fire from their chemical changes. It is by many supposed that this fire acting throughout the entire mass (without the presence of air to supply oxygen except on the surface) caused it to become melted carbon, and to flow around those bodies which still retained their shapes, changing them to coal without destroying their structures. This coal, so long as it retains its present form, is lost to the vegetable kingdom, and each ton that is burned, by being changed into carbonic acid, adds to the ability of the atmosphere to support an increased amount of vegetation.

Thus we see that, in the provisions of nature, carbon, the grand basis, on which all organized matter is founded, is never permanent in any of its forms. Oxygen is the carrier which enables it to change its condition. For instance, let us suppose that we have a certain quantity of charcoal; this is nearly pure carbon. We ignite it, and it unites with the oxygen of the air, becomes carbonic acid, and floats away into the atmosphere. The wind carries it through a forest, and the leaves of the trees with their millions of mouths drink it in. By the assistance of light it is decomposed, the oxygen is sent off to make more carbonic acid, and the carbon is retained to form a part of the tree. So long as that tree exists in the form of wood, the carbon will remain unaltered, but when the wood decays, or is burned, it immediately takes the form of carbonic acid, and mingles with the atmosphere ready to be again taken up by plants, and have its carbon deposited in the form of vegetable matter.

The blood of animals contains carbon derived from their food. This unites with the oxygen of the air drawn into the lungs and forms carbonic acid. Without this process, animals could not live. Thus, while by the natural operation of breathing, they make carbonic acid for the uses of the vegetable world, plants, in taking up carbon, throw off oxygen to keep up the life of animals. There is perhaps no way in which we can better illustrate the changes of form in carbon than by describing a simple experiment.

Take a glass tube filled with oxygen gas, and put in it a lump of charcoal, cork the ends of the tube tightly, and pass through the corks the wires of an electrical battery. By passing a stream of electrical fluid over the charcoal it may be ignited, when it will burn with great brilliancy. In burning it is dissolved in the oxygen forming carbonic acid, and disappears. It is no more lost, however, than is the carbon of wood which is burned in a stove; although invisible, it is still in the tube, and may be detected by careful weighing. A more satisfactory proof of its presence may be obtained by decomposing the carbonic acid by drawing the wires a short distance apart, and giving a spark of electricity. This immediately separates the oxygen from the carbon which forms a dense black smoke in the tube. By pushing the corks together we may obtain a wafer of charcoal of the same weight as the piece introduced. In this experiment we have changed carbon from its solid form to an invisible gas and back again to a solid, thus fully representing the continual changes of this substance in the destruction of organic matter and the growth of plants.