Atlas

in Greek mythology, the name of a Titan whom Zeus condemned to bear the vault of heaven. The same name is given to a collection of maps and charts, and was first used by Gerard Mercat or in the 16th century, the figure of Atlas bearing the globe being given on the title-pages of such works. ' Atlee, Washington Lemuel, an American surgeon, born in Lancaster, Pa., Feb. 22, 1808; became noted as a pioneer in ovariotomy and the removal of uterine fibroid tumors. He died Sept. 6, 1878. es Atmometer, an instrument {nvented by Sir John Leslie for measuring the quantity of moisture exhaled in a given time from apy humid surface. A‘ Atmosphere, literally, the air surrounding our planet, and which, as the etymology implies, is, speaking broadly, a “sphere” (not, of course, a solid, but a hollow one). With strict accuracy, it is a hollow spheroid. Its exact height is unknown. At 2.7 miles above the surface of the earth, half its density is gone, and the remainder is — halved for every further rise of 2.7 miles. Some small density would remain at 45 miles high. At 80 miles, this would have all but disappeared. But from sundry observations, made at Rio Janeiro and elsewhere, on the twilight are, M. Liais infers that the extreme limit of the atmosphere is between 198 and 212 miles. In the lower strata of the atmosphere, the temperature falls at least a degree for every 352 feet of ascent; hence, even in the_ tropics, mountains of any considerable elevation are snow-capped. The atmosphere appears to us blue, because, absorbing the red and yellow solar rays, it reflects the blue ones. It revolves with the earth, but being extremely mobile. winds are generated in it, so that it is rarely long at rest.