76 Dr. Macvicae's Adaptation of the Philosophy of 



and adopt the order of form of the other, so long as it exists in its pre- 

 sence, if it be capable of it. Now, of the two, vapour and nitrogen, 

 vapour is the more tender. It is also exquisitely capable of being trans- 

 formed, so as, in its transformed state, to apply itself most symmetri- 

 cally and completely to nitrogen. Thus, let a particle of vapour, sup- 

 posed to be on the pole of an atom of nitrogen, be assimilated to the 

 latter, that is, let one of the six parts of which it consists, be excluded 

 from the circle of six, and then the five re- 

 maining elements may immediately fall upon 

 each other in such a way that their union 

 may be more complete than it was when, along 

 with the sixth, they constituted a particle of 

 vapour. But it is now of the pentagonal 

 system of forms. It is now like nitrogen. 

 It may, indeed, be said to form the negative 

 icosahedi'on (see fig. 0), of which nitrogen is the 

 positive ; for on constructing these two dia- 

 grams, it will be seen that each of them is bounded by twenty triangular 

 faces, five for each polar region, and ten for the equatorial region, all equal 

 to each other, which is the conception of the icosahedron. But in N the 

 five polar faces are salient, as in the icosahedron of geometry, while in 

 this species they are re-entrant, so that the poles here touch each other 

 in the centime of the form. This species is, therefore, altogether in want 

 of an axis, but this the nitrogen, with which, on its development, it 

 enters into union, will supply on one side, while the atom of hydrogen 

 discharged from the circle of six, when it was a particle of vapom", will 

 supply it on the other. 



By the assimilative influence of the nitrogen, assisted by pressure, we 

 thus obtain, in the abyss, a new species, to which the following pro- 

 perties must attach : — (a) Its atomic weight must be 45 — 5 = 40 ; for 

 although the atom of hydi'ogen now in the pole was loaded when 

 forming one of the six members in the equator of the particle of 

 vapour, not only would the law of the maintenance of the original 

 type (see page 68) lead us to expect that it would recover itself simply 

 as H when the molecule oi aq was transformed, but the forces which are 

 supernumerary in reference to H when loaded ai'e necessary to complete 

 the symmetry of the new species 0. Thus its equatorial region consists 

 of ten times tliree forces, which, to complete their relations, require ten 

 in the centre. Hydrogen being taken as tmity, the atomic weight of 

 this new species, is therefore 8. (J) Its angles are all composed of 

 groups of three forces, and its centre or axis, as has been said, consists of 

 a group of ten. Its repulsive action, therefoi'e, upon a ray of incident 



