It is remarkable that mountain air contains more ammonia than the air of valleys. The air in those places where animal substances undergoing change are accumulated, and especially that of stables, generally contains a much greater quantity of this gas. This is the reason of the peculiar pungent smell noticed in such places. Moreover ammonia, as we shall learn in the following chapter, combines with acids, and should therefore be found in air in the form of such combinations, since air contains carbonic and nitric acids.
The presence of nitric acid in air is proved without doubt by the fact that rain-water contains an appreciable amount of it.
Further (as already mentioned in Chapter IV.), air contains ozone and hydrogen peroxide and nitrous acid (and its ammonia salt), i.e. substances having a direct oxidising action (for instance, upon iodized starch-paper), but they are present in very small quantities.43
Besides substances in a gaseous or vaporous state,44 there is always found a more or less considerable quantity of substances which are not known in a state of vapour. These substances are present in the air as dust. If a linen surface, moistened with an acid, be placed in perfectly pure air, then the washings are found to contain sodium, calcium, iron, and potassium.45 Linen moistened with an alkali absorbs carbonic, sulphuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids. Further, the presence of organic substances in air has been proved by a similar experiment. If a glass globe be filled with ice and placed in a room where are a number of people, then the presence of organic substances, like albuminous substances, may be proved in the water which condenses on the surface of the globe. It may be that the miasmas causing infection in marshy localities, hospitals, and in certain epidemic illnesses proceed from the presence of such substances in the air (and especially in water, which contains many micro-organisms), as well as from the presence of germs of lower organisms in the air as a minute dust. Pasteur proved the existence of such germs in the air by the following experiment:—He placed gun-cotton (pyroxylin), which has the appearance of ordinary cotton, in a glass tube. Gun-cotton is soluble in a mixture of ether and alcohol, forming the so-called collodion. A current of air was passed through the tube for a long period of time, and the gun-cotton was then dissolved in a mixture of ether and alcohol. An insoluble residue was thus obtained which actually contained the germs of organisms, as was shown by microscopical observations, and by their capacity to develop into organisms (mould, &c.) under favourable conditions. The presence of these germs determines the property of air of bringing about the processes of putrefaction and fermentation—that is the fundamental alteration of organic substances, which is accompanied by an entire change in their properties. The appearance of lower organisms, both vegetable and animal, is always to be remarked in these processes. Thus, for instance, in the process of fermentation, when, for example, wine is procured from the sweet juice of grapes, a sediment separates out which is known under the name of lees, and contains peculiar yeast organisms. Germs are required before these organisms can appear.46 They are floating in the air, and fall into the sweet fermentable liquid from it. Finding themselves under favourable conditions, the germs develop into organisms; they are nourished at the expense of the organic substance, and during growth change and destroy