Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1893 — Vast Power of the Atmosphere. [ARTICLE]

Vast Power of the Atmosphere.

Somebody has made the calculation that, taking the quantities roughly and in round numbers, the atmosphere weighs about a ton to every square foot of the earth's surface, 25,000,000 tons per square mile, or 5,000,000,000,000.000 tons on the total of 200,000,000 square miles; and its energy is that due to the motion of this inconceivable mass, at velocities varying all the way from the slightest zephyr to the hurricane and the cyclone, rushing over the prairie or along the surface of the sea at more than one hundred miles an hour. Again, according to this authority, a cubic mile of air, weighing about ten billion pounds, develops, at the rate of motion of the cyclone, some 4,000,000,000,000 “foot tons” of energy, and if all were employed at such rate for the performance of work, useful or destructive, this number of “foot pounds” would be equivalent to more than 2,000,000,000,000,000 horse power.—[New York Sun.