J40 Effcdi of the OK'^genated Muriatic Add in Vegetation. 



lefs prejudiced and more enlightened. I fliall {hew that azote does not pafs through ignited 

 tubes, any more than phlogifton pafles through crucibles. The experiments which Prieftley 

 has made to prove that air pafles through earthen retorts do in no refpeft prove it. He 

 faw the retorts fmoke on their outer furface : but this vapour was not, as he imagined, 

 water pafling through : but the external furface of the earthen retort attradted water from 

 the atmofphere. 



(To he continued.) mi t 



X. 



On the Power of the Oxygenated Muriatic Acid in Vegetation. By a Correfpondent. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR,. 



X/ ROM a conviftion that you have a fatisfaftion in giving a place in your ufeful Journal* 

 to any hints that tend to reflore an important difcovery to its rightful owner, I am induced 

 to tranfmit to you the annexed tranfcript of part of an eflay written by the late ingenious 

 Dr. Ingenhoufz. 



It was publifhed in the year 1796, In an appendix to the general report of the Board of 

 Agriculture : and clearly demonftrates, that at that period, the Doftor not only poflefled an 

 id€a of the power of the oxygenated muriatic acid in accelerating the germination of feeds, 

 but had actually put it to the teft of experiment. I need hardly add, that the efFefts of 

 this acid in refufcltating the dormant powers of vegetable animation, has lately been im- 

 ported as a philofophical novelty from the Continent. 



" As I have made mention more than once in this paper, of a letter I wrote to Sir John 

 Sinclair, dated Dec. id. 1794, on different articles relating to agriculture, and among 

 others, upon the beneficial effects of alkaline falts in promoting vegetation, and refpedling 

 the efFe£ls of fome other falts ; and as that letter makes no part of this paper, I think it 

 proper to inform the reader, that the particularly goodefFeft of alkaline fait was fo manifeft 

 in my own garden, that all the gardeners who faw it thought it equal to the effefts of 

 the beft horfe dung. I repeated the application of that fait laft year (1795) at Hartford 

 with the Hon. Baron N. Dimfdale, M. P. in his garden, and that gentleman was equally- 

 convinced as myfelf, of its manifeft good eCefts. We tried at the fame time, the appli- 

 cation of different neutral falts, the particulars of which experiments I may pofDbly publifti 

 on fome future occafion. We made alfo many experiments with different folutions, and 

 medicated liquors poured upon the ground, as well as fteeplng the feeds of different grains, 

 in them. Be it fufficient to fay here, that of all the neutral falts we tried, the glauber fait 

 did feem to be one of the beft in promoting vegetation ; and that the fteeplng the feeds in 

 the oxygenated marine or muriatic acid, (which is now much employed in bleaching linen 



m 



