368 Experiments on the Nature of Axole, &e. [Nov. 



negative, produces with hydrogen, which is feebly electro- 

 positive, a radicle strongly electro-positive ? It will be said, 

 because tbe bydrogen in ammonia is combined with less uxygen 

 than in water, and because Thenard and Gay-Lussac have 

 observed that, when in organic compounds, the hydrogen is to 

 the oxygen as in water, the compounds are neither acid nor 

 alkaline ; but when the quantity of oxygen exceeds this ratio the 

 substances are acids. The observation of the Fiench chemists is 

 interesting, but it proves nothing; for in acetic acid, which is 

 one of the strongest vegetable acids, the oxygen is to the 

 hydrogen precisely in the same ratio as in water; and the sul- 

 phuret and telluret of hydiogen preserve, in spite of the pre- 

 sence of hydrogen and tbe absence of oxygen, the electro-nega- 

 tive nature of sulphur and tellurium ; so that hydrogen does not 

 appear of itself to determine any thing respecting the electro- 

 chemical nature of a compound. There remains, therefore, 

 something at the bottom of this fact which we do not under- 

 stand. 



2. Water is composed of l\'?o hydrogen and S8'25 oxygen, 

 and nitric acid likewise of 11*7* nitric and 88-29 oxygen. In 

 azote the nitric is combined with 14- times as much oxygen 

 as in ammonia is combined with the hydiogen and nitric toge- 

 ther ; that is to say. that according to tbe estimations which 

 appear at present the most correct, the weight of the hydrogen 

 in ammonia is precisely one-half of that of the nitric, is this 

 merely accidental? or is there some connection of cause which 

 occasions it ? Can we suppose that nature, in modifying the 

 electro-chemical state of the radicle or ammonia, produces from 

 it, under different and unknown circumstances, sometimes 

 hydrogen, sometimes the suboxide of nitric ? Is it possible that 

 the nitric, that is, the electro-chemical modification which 

 renders it capable of forming an acid, never exists without 

 oxygen ; and that on that account azote, though a compound, 

 baffles all our attempts to reduce it : and consequently the com- 

 bustible radicle can never exist alone under any other forms than 

 those of ammonium and hydrogen ? If these ideas should one 

 day become probable, what views would they not furnish us with 

 respecting the regeneration of the atmosphere, and the produc- 

 tion of azote among herbivorous animals, which find so little of 

 it in their food, and yet furnish daily so great a quantity of it in 

 their excretions ? But it is easy to make conjectures. Perhaps 

 I have already indulged in them too far. Deceitful probabilities 

 are almost always more injurious to science than the advancement 

 of absurdities, or inaccurate experiments. 



