J. Reiset's experiments, by their number, accuracy, the large volumes
employed, and the interval of years that separate them, have definitely
established two facts on which the earth's history must depend: the
first is, that the percentage of carbonic acid in the air scarcely
changes; the second, that it differs but little from three
ten-thousandths by volume.
These results are fully confirmed by the results which were obtained by
Franz Schulze, in Rostock, in 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1871. The averages
which he got, with very small variation, were 2.8668 for 1869, 2.9052
for 1870, and 3.0126 for 1871.
More recently Muentz and Aubin have analyzed air collected on the plains
near Paris, on the Pic du Midi, and on the top of Puy-de-Dome. Their
results agree with those published by Reiset and Schulze.
The grand average of carbonic oxide in the air seems to be tolerably
fixed, but after this starting-point is established it remains to study
the variations that it is capable of, not from local causes, which are
of little importance, but from general causes connected with large
movements of the air. Upon this study, which demands the co-operation of
a definite number of observers stationed at different and distant
points of the earth, the experiments being made simultaneously and by
comparable methods.
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