Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy.

  • Murphy, Patrick, 1782-1847.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    most accurate calculations, taken from its* power of refracting the sun's rays above the horizon, being 44 to 45 miles only in height, or about the 175th part of the earth's diameter; all beyond being considered a species of vacuum, or ether, so rare, as to be incapable of transmitting heat, or even light, in a requisite quantity. Thus it becomes necessary to seek other explanations for these phenomena in the atmosphere than that alluded to. Let it, then, be supposed (as I wish only to put it hypothetically) that the atmospheres that en- compass the different planetary bodies composing the solar system are intended by the Creator, not only as the theatres of various phenomena, but as vestments, by which the animal and vegetable bodies they sustain were to be protected from the excesses of each extreme of temperature, and adapted in their elevations and densities to their relative distances from the sun. Let it also be supposed that the sun's body (the diameter of which is computed to be 111 times that of the earth) is specifically equal to the collective amount of the planets that encircle him; that he is likewise furnished with an atmosphere, but different from those attached to the former, being, from its extreme subtilty, nearly immaterial, with the property of diverg- ing in right lines from his body, and extending * This, as will be shewn hereafter, is not a correct principle by which to measure the height of the atmosphere.