ft 



on various Ohjects, 97 



against the mode of explaining the phenomena by suppos- 

 ing nitrogen decomposed in the operation ; but they cannot 

 be considered as decisive on this complicated and obscure 

 •question, and the opposite view may be easily defended. 



Though I have already laid before the Society a (lumber 

 of experiments upon the decomposition of ammonia, yet I 

 shall not hesitate to detail some further operations which 

 have been conducted according to new views of the subject. 



I concluded from the loss of weight taking place in the 

 electrical analysis of ammonia, that water or oxygen was 

 probably separated in this operation; but I was aware that 

 objections might be made to this mode of accounting for 

 the phenomenon. 



The experiment of producing an amalgam from ammo- 

 nia, which regenerated volatile alkali, apparently by oxida- 

 tion, confirmed the notion of the existence of oxygen in 

 •this substance; at the same time it led to the suspicion, that 

 of the two gases separated by electricity, one, or perhaps 

 both, might contain metallic matter united to oxygen : and 

 the results of the distillation, of the fusible substance, 

 from potassium and ammonia, notwithstanding the ob- 

 jections I have made, can perhaps be explained on such a 

 supposition. 



Thave made a number of experiments upon the decom- 

 position of considerable quantities of ammonia, both by 

 Voltaic and common electricity; and T have used an ap- 

 paratus (of which a figure is attached to this paper) in 

 which nothing was present but the gas, the metals for 

 conveying the electricity, and glass. The ammonia was 

 introduced by a stopcock which was cleared of common 

 air, into a globe that was exhausted, after bcins; filled two 

 or three times with ammonia : the gas that was used was 

 absolutely pure, the decomposition was performed without 

 any possibility of change in the volume of the elastic mat- 

 ter, and the apparatus was such, that the gas could be ex- 

 posed to a freezing mixture, and the whole weighed before 

 and after the experiment. 



The object in keeping the volume the same during the 

 decomposition, was to produce the condensation of any 

 aqueous vapour, which if formed in small quantity in the 

 operation, (on the theory of the mechanical diffusion of 

 vapour in gases,) might in the common case of decompo- 

 sition, under the usual pressure, be in quantity nearly twice 

 as much in the hydrogen and nitrogen, as in the ammonia. 



In all instances it was found, that there was no loss of 

 weight of the apparatus, nor was there any deposition of 



