64t S AMALGAM PRODUCED FROM AMMONIA. 



The tnflam- Something lias been separated from them which adds to 



their weight; and whether it be considered as oxigen, or as 



water 



.cess had become of a grayish-green colour. By hedltng this grayish- 

 .green substance considerably, two fifths of the ammonia were again 

 emitted, with a quantity of hidrogen and nitrogen corresponding to one 

 fifth more; and by adding water to the mixture, and heating it very 

 ftrongly again, they obtained the remainder of the ammonia, and nothing 

 but potash was left. 

 But the sup- In these complex processes, the phenomena may be as easily ex* 

 position gratu- pi a i ne d on the idea of potassium being a simple, as that of its being a 

 compound substance; nor when the facts that have been stated in this 

 paper, and those about to be stated, are considered, can the view of these 

 distinguished chemists, as detailed in the notice referred to, be at all ad- 

 mitted. 



Potash, as I have found by numerous experiments, has no affinity for 

 ammonia, for it does not absorb it when heated in it ; it is not therefore, 

 allowing their theory, possible to conceive, that a substance having no 

 attraction for potash should repel from it a substance which is intimately 

 combined with it, and which can be separated in no other way. 

 The pheno- A part of the hidrogen evolved in their experiment may be furnished 



mena account- t, v wa ter contained in the ammonia; but it is scarcely possible, that the 

 j whole of it can be derived from this source, for on such an idea the am- 



monia must contain more than half its weight of water. There is how- 

 ever no evidence, that the whole of the hidrogen may not be furnished 

 by the decomposition of the volatile alkali itself. Potassium in its first 

 degree of oxigenation may have an affinity for nitrogen, or potassium 

 may expel a portion of hidrogen at the moment of its combination with 

 ammonium; and as the whole of the ammonia cannot be regenerated with- 

 tut the presence of water, hidrogen and a little oxigen may be furnished 

 to the remaining elements of the ammonia from the water, and oxigen ta 

 the potassium. 



Even before the conclusion was formed, that a metallic substance is 

 decomposed in this experiment, it should have been proved, that the ni. 

 trogen had not been altered. 

 Potash cannot That mere potash combined with hidrogen cannot form potassium, is 

 form potassium I think shown by an experiment, which I tried, in consequence of the 

 by com ma- important fact, lately ascertained by Messrs. Gay Lussac and Thenard, 

 droeen. °f the deoxidation of potash by iron: 



Experiment. ^n ounce °f potash was kept in ignition for some time in an iron 

 tube, ground into a gun barrel in which one ounce and a half of iron 

 turnings were ignited to whiteaess ; a communication was opened, by 

 withdrawing a wire which closed the tube containing the potash, between 

 that alkali and the metal. 



As the potash came into contact with the iron, gaseous matter was de- 

 veloped, which was received in a proper apparatus 5 and though some of 



it 



