512 On the Analysis of the 
proportion of about 0.7 of a grain to 100 of 
the nitrate and the materials added to it: 
In the tube there remained, besides char- 
coal, carbonate of baryta, with a very small 
quantity of that earth in its pure state, but 
no undecomposed nitrate. After separating 
the pure baryta by boiling water, the carbo-. 
nate was dissolved out of the excess of char- 
coal by muriatic acid; the solution decom- 
posed by sulphate of soda; and, from the 
quantity of sulphate of baryta, its equivalent 
in carbonate, and the quantity of carbonic 
acid in the latter compound, were determined. 
The analysis of the mixture of gases was 
made with the greatest care, and was thrice 
repeated. Reckoning up the oxygen con- 
tained in all the different products, and the 
nitrogen both free and in the nitrous gas, the 
volume of the latter was found to be to that 
of the former as 7.9 to 19.85, or as 1 to 2.51; 
thereby fully confirming that view of the pro- 
portion of the elements of nitric acid, which 
had previously been derived from synthetic 
experiments. 
If then nitrous oxide be taken as the binary 
combination, in which the elements, nitro- 
gen and oxygen, exist atom to atom singly, 
two volumes of nitrogen will contain the same 
number of ultimate particles or atoms as one 
