Es:peri'menls on Ammonia. 3.79f 



tion of ammonia by electricity influenced me to attcnjpt 

 the discovery of a shorter and more summary method uf 

 analysis. Tlie most obvious one was its decomposition by 

 oxymuriatic acid gas; but this pl;in was abandoned, from 

 ihe inipossibihly of |:on fining both the gases by. any one 

 fluid ; since the wateV acts powerfully on the one, and mer-. 

 cury on the other. But a mixture of oxygen and air, mo-, 

 niacal cases more than answered my expeciations. When 

 mingled in proper proportions, these ga.ses, I have ascer-- 

 tained, may be detonated over mercury by an electric spark,, 

 exactly like a mixture of vital and inflammable air , and 

 the results of the process, with due attention to the cir- 

 cumstances, which will soon be stated, afford an easy and 

 precise method of analysing, in the space of a few minutes, 

 considerable quantities of the volatile alkali. With ar 

 greater proportion of pure oxygen gas * to ammonia than 

 tiiat of three to one, or of ammonia to oxygen than that 

 of three to 1*4, the mixture ceases to be combustible. 

 When the proportions best adapted to inflammation are 

 used, oxygen jjas may be diluted with six times its bulk of 

 atmospherical air, without losing its property of burning 

 ammonia. 



Atmospherical air alone does not, however, inflame with 

 ammonia in any proportion that I have yet tried ; though, 

 by long continued electrization with air, ammonia is at 

 length decomposed ; its hydrogen uniting with the oxygen 

 of the air and forming water, while the nitrogen of both 

 composes a permanent residuum. Forty-five measures of 

 ammonia bcino; electrified with eighty-six of connnon air, 

 tlie total 131 became 136, and 132 after being washed with 

 water. Of 17*2 measures of oxygen, contained in the Qd 

 measures of air at the outset, only 2*9 were left, and these 

 also would probably have disappeared by continuing the 

 operation. ]f a mixture of ammonia and atmospheric air, 

 each previously dried by caustic potash and then electrified, 

 be cxanjincd, the production of water is made sufliciently 

 a))pircnt on applying ether to the containing vessel. \i\. 

 suljjccting ammonia, therefore, to this test of the genera- 

 tion of water by electricity, the purity of the g^s from atr 

 mospheric air should be carefully determined t- 



Tlie products of the combustion of smmouia with oxy- 



* Ctmtaiiiiiig^ only tlirec or four per cent, nitrogen gas. 



f Tlie ri-iult of t\\u experiment shows, moreover, that even supposing 

 oxy(;cn to be h constiuieiit of aminoma. we are not to expect its evolution, 

 in a .separiite form, I>y eli;ctricity; iliice, wlicu electrified with aniinoniacal 

 pis, oxvj;(n f^as is deprived of its clastic form, and i;s base is condensed into 

 water hj union with nascent hvdrogen evolved from the alkali. 



' A a 3 gen 



