Representative Chambers, and will probably spend another before that is
accomplished. In capitols, churches, and public halls of every sort, the
same story holds. Women faint, men in courts of justice fall in apoplectic
fits, or become victims of new and mysterious diseases, simply from the
want of pure air. A constant slow murder goes on in nurseries and
schoolrooms; and white-faced, nerveless children grow into white-faced and
nerveless men and women, as the price of this violated law.

What is this air, seemingly so hard to secure, so hard to hold as part of
our daily life, without which we can not live, and which we yet
contentedly poison nine times out of ten?

Oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and watery vapor; the last two being a
small portion of the bulk, oxygen and nitrogen making up four-fifths.
Small as the proportion of oxygen seems, an increase of but one-fifth more
would be destruction. It is the life-giver, but undiluted would be the
life-destroyer; and the three-fifths of nitrogen act as its diluent. No
other element possesses the same power. Fires and light-giving combustion
could not exist an instant without oxygen. Its office seems that of
universal destruction. By its action decay begins in meat or vegetables
and fruits; and it is for this reason, that, to preserve them, all oxygen
must be driven out by bringing them to the boiling point, and sealing them
up in jars to which no air can find entrance. With only undiluted oxygen
to breathe, the tissues would dry and shrivel, fuel burn with a fury none
could withstand, and every operation of nature be conducted with such
energy as soon to exhaust and destroy all power. But "a mixture of the
fiery oxygen and inert nitrogen gives us the golden mean. The oxygen now
quietly burns the fuel in our stoves, and keeps us warm; combines with the
oil in our lamps, and gives us light; corrodes our bodies, and gives us
strength; cleanses the air, and keeps it fresh and invigorating; sweetens