The Remarkable Sunsets

Abstract

REFERRING to Mr. Burder's letter in NATURE of January 10 (p. 251), is it so certain that, if there be no resisting medium in interplanetary space, the whole of the earth's atmosphere must “rotate with the earth as if it were part and parcel of it?” Take a stratum of the atmosphere at, say, forty-five miles in altitude at the equator. According to the received theory, this ought of course to move with a velocity greater than that of the surface of the earth immediately below. But each successive inferior stratum moves with less velocity. And thus they must tend to retard the superior strata with which they may be assumed to be in contact. Of course the merging of stratum into stratum is gradual, but this does not affect the amount of friction and retardation.