Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 347 



4. Water absorbs it pretty rapidly : one volume of water absorbing five 

 volumes of the gas. The water acquires a pungent taste, and the peculiar 

 smell of the gas. But it does not alter the colour of litmus or cudbear paper. 



5. One volume of oil of turpentine absorbs thirty volumes of the gas ; 

 the oil assumes a light-green colour, and resembles cajeput ; but still re- 

 tains its peculiar odour. 



6. The gas is neither absorbed by acids nor alkalies. Hence it possesses 

 neither acid nor alkaline properties. 



7. When common air or oxygen gas is mixed with this gas, the usual 

 red fumes of nitrous acid appear, and the volume of the mixture is dimini- 

 shed. It is not therefore homogeneous, but contains a considerable pro- 

 portion of nitrous gas. I endeavoured to determine the proportion of ni- 

 trous gas in 100 volumes, by mixing it with determinate quantities of oxy- 

 gen gas over mercury. The diminution of volume was noted, and two- 

 thirds of that diminution reckoned as nitrous gas. A mean of some experi- 

 ments gave the amount of nitrous gas in 100 volumes of the new ,gas, 63 

 volumes, or rather more than three-fifths of the whole. 



100 volumes of the gas, after being washed in water, and in a solution 

 of protosulphate of iron, left 8 per cent, of azotic gas. 



Hence the gas extricated from a mixture ofaquu regia and pyroxylic spi- 

 rit, consists of 



New inflammable gas, - 29 

 Nitrous gas, 63 



Azotic gas, 8 



100 

 The specific gravity of the gas was taken in a flask which had been twice 

 exhausted and filled each time with hydrogen gas. It was 1.945, the spe- 

 cific gravity of common air being reckoned unity. 



The calculated specific gravity of the pure inflammable gas in this mixture 

 is 4.1757, which considerably exceeds the specific gravity of chloro-carbonic 

 acid, or the phosgene gas of Dr Davy, which is 3.4722. 

 The gas seems to be a compound of 



1| volume carbon vapour, 1 condensed into one volume. 

 1J volume hydrogen gas, > These added together make 

 1 \ volume chlorine gas, ) a specific gravity of 3.9814. 

 This is lighter than the gas was found by experiment by about one twen- 

 ty-first part. But there is some uncertainty about the actual specific gra- 

 vity, as it depends upon the proportion of nitrous gas, — a proportion not de- 

 termined with perfect accuracy. 



1 am disposed to consider it as not unlikely that the proportion of ni- 

 trous gas may have been rather underrated. On that supposition, I think 

 it very probable, that the true constituents of a volume of the gas are, 

 1 volume carbon vapour, 0.4166 

 1 volume hydrogen gas, 0.0694 

 1 h volume chlorine gas, 3.7500 



4.2361 



