» Sir H. Davy's Account 



pesante que Teau, et qui detonne avec toute la violence des 

 m^taux fulminans a la simple chaleur de la main, ce qui a 

 prive d'un ceil et d'un doigt Tauteur de cette decouverte. 

 Cette d^tonnation a lieu par la simple separation des deux gaz, 

 comme celle de la combinaison d'oxigene et de chlorine ; il y 

 a egalement beaucoup de lumiere et de la chaleur produites 

 dans cette d^tonnation, ou un liquide se decompose en deux 

 gaz. 



The letter contained no account of the mode of preparation 

 of this substance, nor any other details respecting it. 



So curious and important a result could not fail to interest 

 me, particularly as I have long been engaged in experiments 

 on the action of azote and chlorine, without gaining any decided 

 proofs of their power of combining with each other. I 

 perused with avidity the different French chemical and phy- 

 sical journals, especially Les Annates de Chifniey and Le Journal 

 de Physique, of which the complete series of last year have 

 arrived in this country, in hopes of discovering some detail 

 respecting the preparation of this substance, but in vain. I 

 was unable to find any thing relative to it in these publica- 

 tions, or in the Moniteur, 



It was evident from the notice, that it could not be formed 

 in any operations in which heat is concerned; I therefore 

 thought of attempting to combine azote and chlorine under 

 circumstances which I had never tried before, that of presenting 

 them to each other artificially cooled, the azote being in a 

 nascent state. For this purpose I made a solution of ammonia, 

 cooled it by a mixture of ice and muriate of lime, and slowly 

 passed into it chlorine, cooled by the same means. There was 

 immediately a violent action, accompanied by fumes of a pecu- 



