288 Dr. H. Will on M. Reiset’s Remarks 
drogen becoming free from the combustion of the carbon at 
the expense of the oxygen of [the hydrated water, as well as 
through the difficulty of its combustion. 
M. Reiset appears to have overlooked the fact that finely 
divided carbon is also, as well as an organic substance, 
oxidized completely by means of the hydrates of the alkalies, 
and states that we have neglected to prove in a satisfactory 
manner, that the facts observed by Faraday, according to 
which non-nitrogenous bodies, as sugar, acetate of potash, 
oxalate of lime, tartrate of lead, &c., by ignition with potash, 
soda, and hydrate of barytes and access of air give an ap- 
preciable quantity of ammonia, are without influence on the 
new process of analysis. He has undertaken this for us; and 
his experiments, which were made with stearine and sugar, 
gave him on combustion with soda-lime, under the same cir- 
cumstances as in the execution of a nitrogen analysis, the fol- 
lowing very remarkable results :— 
a Platinum Nitrogen Nitrogen in 
ie obtained. obtained. 100 parts. 
0°250 . 0°02650 0°0038 1°52 
0°500 0:05250 0°0075 1°50 
1°000 0:0890 0:0127 1°27 
1°500 0°104: 0:0149 1:00 
2°000 0°10725 0:0153 0°75 
In these experiments the quantity of ammonia obtained was 
in exact proportion to the quantity of sugar employed, as far as 
one gramme; with more sugar more ammonia was net obtained. 
Reiset obtained further from 1 gramme stearine, 0:06475 
platinum = 0:0092 nitrogen, and in two other experiments 
with sugar performed in an atmosphere of hydrogen (from 
1 gramme), 0°03375 and 0:034 platinum = 0°0048 nitrogen. 
From both these last experiments, according to which non- 
nitrogenous bodies also eliminate ammonia in an atmosphere of 
hydrogen, M. Reiset concludes that the alkaline mixture pos- 
sesses the property of condensing nitrogen so intimately and 
strongly that it cannot be expelled completely by a current of 
hydrogen passed over it for six hours, and that this state of 
condensation, approaching as it does the nascent state, makes 
the nitrogen more apt to enter into combination. 
As a further proof of the incorrectness of our method, M. 
Reiset brings forward the analysis of cinchovatina, an organic 
base discovered by Manzini in Jaén Cinchona, from an analysis 
of which, performed with a mixture of sugar, almost 5 per 
cent. more of nitrogen than the calculation required was ob- 
tained. 0°052 cinchovatina gave, namely 0°949 ammonio- 
chloride of platinum = 11°95 per cent. nitrogen. 
