18 On some new Electrochemical Researches 



chemists, on the origin of nitrogen, produced during the 

 passage of water through red-hot tubes, or the speculations 

 of Girtanner, founded on these, and other erroneous data : 

 the early discovery of Priestley on the passage of gase9 

 through red-hot tubes of earthen-ware, the accurate re- 

 searches of Berthollet, and the experiments of Bouillon La 

 Grange, have afforded a complete solution of this problem. 



One of the most striking cases, in which nitrogen has 

 been supposed to appear without the presence of any other 

 matter but water, which can be conceived to supply its 

 elements, is in the decomposition and rccomposition of 

 water by electricity*. To ascertain If nitrogen could be 

 generated in this manner, I had an apparatus made, by 

 which a quantity of water could be acted upon by Voltaic 

 electricity, so as to produce oxygen and hydrogen with 

 great rapidity, and ill which these gase9 could be detonated, 

 without the exposure of the water to the atmosphere; so 

 that this fluid was in contact with platina, mercury, and 

 glass only ; and the wires for completing the Voltaic and 

 common electrical circuit were hermetically inserted into 

 rhe tube. 500 double plates of the Voltaic combination 

 were used, in such activity that about the eighth of a cu- 

 bical inch of the mixed gases, upon an average, was pro- 

 duced from 20 to 30 times in everv day. The water used 

 in this experiment was about a half a cubic inch ; it had 

 been carefully purged of air by the air-pump and by boil- 

 ing, and had been introduced into the rube, and secured 

 from the influence of the atmosphere whilst warm. After 

 the fir^t detonation of the oxygen and hydrogen, which 

 together equalled about the eighth of a cubical inch, there 

 was a residuum of about 1 ' (T of the volume of the gases; 

 after every detonation this residuum was found to increase, 

 and when about 50 detonations had been made, it equalled 

 rather more than { of the volume of the water, i. e. {■ of a 

 cubical inch. It was examined by the test of nitrous gas; 

 it contained no oxygen ; six measures mixed with three 

 measures of oxygen diminished to five; so that it consisted 

 of 2*6 of hydrogen, and 3*4 of a gas having the characters 

 of nitrogen. 



This experiment seemed in favour of the idea of the 

 production of nitrogen from pure water in these electrical 

 processes ; but though the platina wires were hermetically 

 sealed into the tube, it occurred to me as possible that at 



* See Dr. Pearson V. elaborate experiments, on the decomposition of water 

 by electrical "explosions. Nicholson's Journal, 4to, vol. i. page 301. 



the 



