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But what is Nitrogen ? A simple body, colorless, tasteless, in 

 odorous, as the chemical text books tell us. And they used also to say 

 that it was always gaseous when uncombined. So it is at ordinary 

 temperatures, but it can be frozen at 346 below zero Fahrenheit when 

 under enormous pressure. Then it becomes, according to Professor 

 1 )cwar, a white crystalline substance. His apparatus for producing it 

 cost something like ^"5000 and cannot 'very well be reproduced here. 

 But although we cannot have the solid nitrogen we have plenty of the 

 gas. When the ladies use their fans it is mainly to put nitrogen in 

 motion. It is the sleeping partner of oxygen in carrying on the busi- 

 ness of the atmosphere. It is a mysterious clement, fickle, indifferent 

 and unstable, but it is most abundant and constitutes four-fifths of the 

 ocean of air at the bottom of which we live, move and have our being. 

 Tne experiment which demonstrates this is very old, but like a good 

 story is none the worse of being twice repeated. 



All the interesting positive properties of the atmosphere are due to 

 oxygen. Nitrogen is only present as a diluent, a restraint, a drag. It is 

 mixed with the oxygen in a mechanical sort of way to prevent its doing 

 too much damage, like water in whiskey. There is no intimate 

 chemical combination betwixt the gases of the atmosphere. In fact 

 nitrogen does not combine willingly with the other elements and is 

 always ready to part company with them at very short notice. 



The question " What is nitrogen?" can, however, be asked and 

 answered with the same significance as the enquiry " What is butter 

 to-day ? " when asked by purchasers at the market. Nitrogen has its 

 price like butter, and in fact the latter is sometimes sold at no higher 

 price per pound. Here we have three jars containing respectively dried 

 blood, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda; all articles of commerce 

 and used in Canada chiefly as fertilisers. All contain nitrogen, although 

 in different combinations, and in all of them the nitrogen is worth about 

 16 cents per pound. Inside of these bottles then its value is considera- 

 ble ; outside of them, in the atmosphere, it is valueless. Inside the 

 bottles it is combined, outside it is free ; free as air and as cheap. But 

 just fancy how rich we should all be if this free nitrogen could be fixed 

 and realized in the form of money. Fifteen pounds of air press upon 



