﻿OKGANIC MATTER IN AIR. 



15 



This table shows analyses made of the air of one of the rooms of the 

 laboratory, and of the air of one of the soil pipes at the same time on 

 several successive days, the organic matter being converted into am- 

 monia. The windows of the room were closed on each day. The 

 results obtained from the room-air are uniformly higher than those 

 obtained from the air of the soil pipe. With one exception, the pro- 

 portion of albuminoid ammonia in the air of the soil pipe is smaller 

 than that of the free ammonia, while in the room-air, with the excep- 

 tion of the last analysis where no ammonia was found, the albuminoid 

 ammonia is far in excess of the free ammonia. 



TABLE II. 



This table shows analyses made of air taken from the same sources 

 as those recorded in Table I, but in this instance the quantity of or- 

 ganic matter is estimated by its reducing action on permanganate instead 

 of being converted into ammonia. In two of the analyses of the room- 

 air a dust-filter had been placed before the absorption apparatus, but 

 since no analyses were made on the same day without the use of a 

 dust-filter the results obtained afford no information as to the effects of 

 such a dust-filter on the results obtained. The results obtained with- 

 out the use of a dust-filter, on succeeding days, are in some instances 

 even more variant than those with, and without, the use of the dust 

 filter. No suggestion can be offered to explain the very high results 

 obtained in the first four analyses. No uniform relation can be deter- 

 mined between the relative amounts of organic matter in the room-air 

 and that of the soil pipe in the results obtained by this method, as 

 seemed to be the case in the results recorded in Table I. 



