194 NITROGEN. 



gas ; even potassium, although intensely heated by galvanism in nitro- 

 gen, produces no change ; it is therefore not a supporter of combus- 

 tion. 



(i.) Water deprived of its air by boiling, absorbs about one and a 

 half per cent, of this gas ; or, according to Dr. Ure, 100 volumes of 

 water absorb about one of this gas ; Mr. Dalton states it at 2.5. 



5. EFFECTS ON ANIMAL LIFE. 



(a.) Fatal, if breathed pure ; an animal immersed in it, immedi- 

 ately dies. 



(6.) Kills by suffocation merely ; it is not directly noxious, and ex- 

 erts no positively injurious influence on the lungs; an animal is drown- 

 ed in it as it would be in water. 



6. COMPOSITION. 



(a.) Unknown; but it is suspected to be compound; Berzelius 

 believes it to be an oxide of an unknown base.* 



(b.) Contained in animal matter, and is equally abundant in her- 

 bivorous and graminivorous, as in carnivorous animals. 



(c.) Plants do not generally contain it. 



(d.) It is an element, according to the present state of our knowl- 

 edge.! 



7. IMPORTANCE AND DIFFUSION. 



(.) It forms the basis of animal substances ; of them it is the char- 

 acteristic element, and it gives origin to the ammonia and the prus- 

 sic acid, which are generated during their decomposition. 



(6.) It is found in the cruciferous plants, cabbage, mustard, &LC. ; 

 in the fungous tribe, mushrooms, &c. and in all plants that putrefy 

 with an animal odor. 



(c.) Its properties are interesting principally in combination; es- 

 pecially in animal matter ; in the nitric compounds ; in ammonia^ 

 and with chlorine and iodine ; for an account of which, see the sections 

 containing those subjects. 



8. POLARITY. It resorts to the negative pole in the electro-gal- 

 vanic circuit, and is therefore considered as electro-positive. 



9. Its combining weight is 14, hydrogen being 1. 



Nitrogen is possessed rather of negative than of positive proper- 

 ties, but in combination, it produces bodies of a highly active and in- 



* Thomson's Annals, II, 284. 



t When ammonia, an alkali which contains nitrogen, (or either of its salts,) is gal- 

 vanized with mercury, it converts that metal into an amalgam, which creates a sus- 

 picion that its base is metallic ; but Gay Lussac and Thenard say, that this amalgam 

 is immediately resolved into mercury, ammonia, and hydrogen, even when water 

 is not present, and that, therefore, it is composed of these three substances directly 

 united ; but, there may be metallic matter in both ammonia and hydrogen, or in hy- 

 drogen alone, because it is contained in ammonia, and it is possible that even ni- 

 trogen may be an oxide of hydrogen. 



