Compounds of Nitrogen. 513% 
volume of oxygen. And imagining the 
smallest possible volume of each of those 
gases, or a volume containing only a single 
atom, the ultimate volume of nitrogen will be 
double the ultimate volume of oxygen. ‘Two 
measurable volumes of nitrogen, when che- 
mically united with one of oxygen, or with 
two, three, or more volumes, will afford com- 
pounds of nitrogen and oxygen, in which 
the atoms will bear the proportion of one to 
one, or one to two, to three, or to more atoms. 
And as two volumes of nitrogen are, in nitric 
acid, combined with five of oxygen, that acid 
is justly considered as constituted of one atom 
of nitrogen, the relative weight of which is 
14, and five atoms of oxygen weighing to- 
gether 40. 
3.—Analysis of Ammonia. 
Another combination of nitrogen, the exact 
analysis of which is of great importance, from 
the connection of the results with the law of 
volumes, as well as with the atomic system, is 
that into which it enters with hydrogen. On- 
ly one compound of those two elements, viz- 
ammonia, has yet been discovered, the decom- 
position of which, when existing as a perma- 
nent gas over mercury, may, asis wellknown, 
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