The Earth
THE NATURAL EARTH
- Chapter 23 -
The Earth's atmosphere and precipitation
The sun of our Earth captures on his radiant surface the light of countless suns, and casts this light, in a united whole, into he vastness of etheric space. The united light of these countless stars also meets rays of light from those stars which reach he Earth directly, unites itself with those rays, and together they fall upon the Earth. Herein lies the support, because sunlight by itself would be very weak if the light of the stars and the other suns did not participate. The light of the moon alone would be very pale if it were not supported by the sunlight.
On the peaks of mountains, this support is not as effective as it is in the lower-lying regions, because there the rays have not reached a sufficient density. The reason for this is that the sphere f air surrounding the Earth is a lenticularly round, transparent body. It is like a large burning glass ("Burning glass" is the traditional English alchemical term for a magnifying lens that is used to concentrate the rays of the sun on an object so as to set it afire. The term is the same in the original German, and so is retained here. -ED.), where the sunbeam that passes through the burning glass does not have its fullest burning strength immediately behind the lens, but rather at a distance which is equal to half the diameter of the circumference, out of which the spherical surface of the burning glass is taken.
The burning point of the great air lens is of course in the center of the Earth. Nevertheless, the ray of light that falls upon the surface of the great Earth lens grows constantly denser and more effective in the direction of the Earth as it comes closer to lie burning point. The mountains receive the least dense part of the rays of light when compared to the lower-lying valleys and especially those regions that are by the oceans. That is why the rays from the distant stars do not reach a sufficient density there, and thus cannot exert any influence on the vegetation. In other words, these rays of light do not form any specifica at such heights. This is the reason why those species of plants that require particular substances do not grow at heights, and that is also the reason why the air is always clean there, and not clouded with any additives.
Since the rays of the stars, as well as those of the sun, cannot have the same effect in the higher regions as in the lower, the higher region is a transitional stage leading to one with stronger effects. Here the rays begin to condense, intensified through the rays that are reflected from the surface of the Earth. Certain developments take place in the light through these rays and counter rays; this is recognizable through the appearance of a kind of wave or surge. When this surging continues for a while, a specificum is produced by it. This specificum, which in itself is of a manifold composition, appears first as fog in the high mountain regions. If this chemical process is not interrupted, cloud formations will soon arise out of the fog; these appear in the higher regions, where they gradually condense and eventually fall to Earth either as rain or, in winter, as snow.
That these precipitations come forth from the light is proven by many phenomena on the surface of the Earth, especially in the tropical regions, where rain frequently covers everything with a phosphorescent glimmer of light. Even the surface of the ocean in these areas glimmers very strongly, as if it were red hot. Objects that are moistened by the ocean waters, too, glow like the rotten wood in the forests. And, last but not least, snow proves, through its brightness, that it is a product of the light.
The mist or fog in the second air region comes into being in the following manner. We should not neglect the fact that the polar force from the North and South Poles is especially effective in these regions. Through this force, new formations are saturated with telluric electricity, and not until then are they given the condensation through which they may be fed to the body of the Earth as nourishment for the plant and animal worlds. The clouds that have been saturated in that manner usually have a dark coloration, whereas the unsaturated, much whiter clouds are more translucent. These two kinds of clouds form between each other ii opposite polarity whereby the saturated dark cloud represents i lie negative, and the unsaturated white one the positive. That the negative cloud becomes increasingly heavy and, in consequence, must descend, is obvious.
Human beings who make the effort to climb to these heights usually become cheerful and merry towards the top. The reason lies in the great purity of the air in its second region up to 65,618 feet (20,000 meters) above sea level.