NEW CHEMICAL REACTIONS. ?5 
mental tube could of course be regulated at pleasure. The 
rapidity of the action diminished with the attenuation of 
the vapor. When, for example, the mercurial column 
associated with the experimental tube was depressed only 
five inches, the action was not nearly so rapid as when the 
tube was full. In such cases, however, it was exceedingly 
interesting to observe, after some seconds of waiting, a thin 
streamer of delicate bluish-white cloud slowly forming 
along the axis of the tube, and finally swelling so as to 
fill it. 
When dry oxygen was employed to carry in the vapor, 
the effect was the same as that obtained with air. 
When dry hydrogen was used as a vehicle, the effect was 
also the same. 
The effect, therefore, is not due to any interaction be- 
tween the vapor of the nitrite and its vehicle. 
This was further demonstrated by the deportment of the 
vapor itself. When it was permitted to enter the experi- 
mental tube unmixed with air or any other gas, the effect 
was substantially the same. Hence the seat of the observed 
action is the vapor. 
This action is not to be ascribed to heat. As regards the 
glass of the experimental tube, and the air within the tube, 
the beam employed in these experiments was perfectly cold. 
It had been sifted by passing it through a solution of alum, 
and through the thick double-convex lens of the lamp. 
When the unsifted beam of the lamp was employed, the 
effect was still the same; the obscure calorific rays did not 
y object here being simply to point out to chemists a 
appear to interfere with the result. 
My 
method of experiment which reveals a new and beautiful 
series of reactions, I left to them the examination of the 
products of decomposition. The group of atoms forming 
the molecule of nitrite of amyl is obviously shaken asunder 
by certain specific waves of the electric beam, nitric oxide 
and other products, of which the nitrate of amyl is probably 
one, being the result of the decomposition. The brown 
fumes of nitrous acid were seen mingling with the cloud 
within the experimental tube. The nitrate of amyl, being 
less volatile than the nitrite, and not being able to maintain 
itself in the condition of vapor, would be precipitated as a 
visible cloud along the track of the beam. 
In the anterior portions of the tube a powerful sifting of 
