FUNCTION.] NITROGEN IS ABSORBED. 299 



a supposition since verified by Professor Liebig and 'others. 

 M. Payen has also ascertained that this gas exists in abundance 

 in plants. He finds it most plentiful in nascent organs, in 

 those in the act of first development, and in cambium ; but 

 he meets with it in wood generally. If a large quantity of 

 water is passed through a stick of elder wood recently cut, 

 the wood loses all its azotised matter, which is carried off by 

 the water : this and some other observations satisfy him that 

 wood generally contains a fluid charged with nitrogen ; and 

 he thence infers that the substances employed to prevent the 

 decomposition of wood do so by acting upon the azotised 

 matter, which they coagulate and render insoluble in water. 

 (Comptes rendus, vi. 102. 132., vii. 889.) The cause of the 

 importance of nitrogen to vegetation having been so long 

 overlooked, is explained by the committee which reported to 

 the Institute upon M. Boussingault's observations. (Comptes 

 rendus, vi. 130.) " One has been involuntarily led to suppose 

 that nitrogen takes 110 part in the phenomena of vegetation, 

 because we know that in its gaseous state it enters into 

 combination with much difficulty. Sufficient attention has 

 not been paid to the facility with which, on the other hand, 

 dissolved nitrogen forms energetic combinations, nor to the 

 pasturage of cattle on high mountains, whence there is 

 annually abstracted, in the form of fat or milk, so much 

 nitrogen, which nevertheless can scarcely reach such 

 situations except by the atmosphere/' 



