UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 113 



mercury, cadmium and zinc, and these are all un- 

 doubtedly monatomic. 



Before leaving Bristol Ramsay had occupied himself 

 in conjunction with Mr. J. Tudor Cundall with a study 

 of the oxides of nitrogen, and more particularly with 

 the singularly elusive substance supposed to consist of 

 the trioxide. Apart from the desirability of ascer- 

 taining definitely the physical and chemical properties 

 of both the peroxide and the trioxide the part played 

 by the gaseous oxides of nitrogen in the reactions 

 which go on in the production of sulphuric acid in the 

 lead chamber was and is still sufficiently mysterious to 

 render further research very desirable. The first paper 

 by Ramsay and Cundall is in the Transactions of ike 

 Chemical Society for 1885 (p. 187). It seems chiefly to 

 bring out the fact that the blue or green liquids supposed 

 to contain the trioxide consist of mixtures of N 2 4 and 

 N 2 3 both in a partially dissociated state and that the 

 passage of nitric oxide, NO, into this liquid fails to con- 

 vert it wholly into N 2 3 , while the addition of excess of 

 oxygen similarly fails to convert it completely into the 

 peroxide. 



This communication elicited two papers from Dr. G. 

 Lunge, whose great experience in the manufacture of 

 sulphuric acid entitles an expression of his views to 

 respect. In these papers he endeavoured to prove by 

 argument and by some experiments that nitrous an- 

 hydride, that is nitrogen trioxide, is capable of existing 

 in the gaseous state. In a second paper (p. 672 in the 



