various figures according to the degrees of heat or cold through which
it passes, being sometimes round, flat, &c.


What is the Atmosphere?

The mass of aëriform fluid which encompasses the earth on all sides:
it extends about fifty miles above its surface. Air is the elastic
fluid of which it is composed.

_Elastic_, having the power of springing back, or recovering
its former figure after the removal of any external pressure
which has altered that figure. When the force which
compresses the air is removed, it expands and resumes its
former state.


What are the uses of air?

It is necessary to the well-being of man, since without it neither he
nor any animal or vegetable could exist. If it were not for
atmospheric air, we should be unable to converse with each other; we
should know nothing of sound or smell; or of the pleasures which arise
from the variegated prospects which surround us: it is to the presence
of air and carbonic acid that water owes its agreeable taste. Boiling
deprives it of the greater part of these, and renders it insipid.

_Variegated_, diversified, changed; adorned with different
colors.