Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/299

Rh surface of the column it arrives at than the outer air on the surface of the other column. If there were no liquid in the manometer, the moved air would finally flow out of the manometer, and, as you see, now that I have emptied the manometer, nearly blow out this candle.

In this way I believe that I have convinced your senses that the air can move through porous soils.

If the air in the ground can be set in motion by the pressure of air or wind against its surface, there can be no doubt that the same can be effected by differences of temperature, and by diffusion, and generally by all causes which can produce movement of gases. As long as the air in the ground is of a different temperature or composition from the free atmosphere, there must be exchange and motion. I will only, in order to leave no doubt on your mind, direct your attention to several well-known facts, which can only be explained by the change of the ground-air.

All Christian nations bury their dead in the earth, to give back to dust what came from dust. There are burial-grounds in which a corpse decays completely in six to seven years, and others in which it takes twenty-five to thirty years. The regulations about a second occupation of a ground depend on this difference, and therefore towns with an equal population may be obliged to have burial-grounds of very different sizes. There are other circumstances of some influence on the process of decay, but the principal one is the amount of, and the facility for, the change of the air in the soil. Rubble and sandy soils do the work much quicker than marl and clay soils. Striking experiences in this respect have been made on the French battlefields, chiefly near Sedan, where a Belgian chemist, Louis Creteur, had to disinfect the large dead-pits. The bodies were buried in chalk, quarry, rubble, sand, argillite, slate, marl, or clay soils, and the sad work lasted from the beginning of March to the end of June. In rubble the decay had taken place fully, but in clay the bodies were surprisingly well kept, even after a very long time, and even the features could be identified.

As the processes of putrefaction and decay are intimately connected with the activity of certain lower organisms, which prey upon the dead, it is sufficiently clear that these organisms must thrive differently in different kinds of soil. A lively change of air and water in the ground appears to be of great influence in this respect; the more air in the ground the richer the underground life.

Remarkable testimony as to the permeability of the ground, and of the foundations of our houses, has been given by gas emanations into houses which had no gas laid on. I know cases where persons were poisoned and killed by gas which had to travel for twenty feet under the street, and then through the foundations, cellar-vaults, and flooring of the ground-floor rooms. As these kinds of accidents happened only in winter, they have been brought forward as a proof that