202 FULMINATING MEBCl'RY. 



tion, that no others arc capable of volatilising mercury, at the 

 very low temperature in which the white fumes t-xist ; since, dur- 

 ing some minutes, they are permanent over water 40 Fahrenheit. 

 *' Hitherto, as much only has been said of the gass which is 

 separated from the mercurial powder, by dilute sulphuric acid, as 

 was necessary to identify it with that into which the same acid can 

 resolve the nitrous etherized gass : I have further to speak of its 

 peculiarity. 



" The characteristic properties of the inflammable gass seem to 

 me to be the following : 1st. It does not diminish in volume, either 

 with oxygen or nitrous gass. 2dly. It will not explode with oxy. 

 gen, by the electric shock, in a close vessel. 3dly. It burns like 

 hydrocarbonate, but with a blueish-green (lame : and 4thly. It is 

 permanent over water. 



" It is of course either not formed, or is convertible into 

 nitrous gass by the concentrate nitric and muriatic acids ; because, 

 by those acids, no inflammable gass was extricated from the 

 powder. 



" Should this inflammable gass prove not to be hydrocarbonate, 

 I shall be disposed to conclude, that it has nitrogen for its basis ; 

 indeed, I am at this moment inclined to that opinion, because I 

 find that Dr. Priestley, during his experiments on his dephlogisti. 

 gated nitrous air, once produced a gass which seems to have re. 

 Sembled this inflammable gass, both in the mode of burning and in 

 the colour of the flame. 



11 After the termination of the common solution of iron, in 

 spirit of nitre, he used heat, and got, says he, ' such a kind of 

 air as I had brought nitrous air to be, by exposing it to iron, or 

 liver of sulphur; for, on the first trial, a candle burned in it with 

 a much enlarged flame. At another time, the application of a 

 candle to air produced in this manner, was attended with a real, 

 though not a loud explosion and immediately after this a green, 

 ish- coloured flame descended from the top to the bottom of the 

 vessel, in which the air was contained. In the next produce of 

 air, from the same process, the flame descended blue, and very 

 rapidly, from the top to the bottom of the vessel.' 



" These greenish and blue-coloured flames, descending from the 

 top to the bottom of the vessel, are precisely descriptive of the 

 inflammable gass separated from the powder. If it can be pro. 



