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. AVhen 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 

 appear to interfere with the result. 



My object here being simply to point out to chemists a 

 method of experiment which reveals a new and beautiful 

 scries 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 



