660 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1800. 



§15. It is clear that these white fumes contain mercury : they may be wholly 

 condensed in a range of Woulfe's apparatus, charged with a solution of muriate of 

 ammonia. When the operation is over, a white powder is seen floating with ether 

 on the saline liquor, which, if the bottles are agitated, is entirely dissolved. After 

 the mixture has been boiled, or for some time exposed to the atmosphere, it yields 

 to caustic ammonia a precipitate, in all respects similar to that which is separated by 

 caustic ammonia from corrosive sublimate. — I would infer from these facts, that the 

 white dense fumes consist of mercury, or perhaps oxide of mercury, united to the 

 nitrous etherized gas ; and that when the muriate of ammonia containing them is 

 exposed to the atmosphere, or is boiled, the gas separates from the mercury ; and 

 the excess of nitrous acid, which always comes over with nitrous ether, decomposes 

 the ammoniacal muriate, and forms corrosive mercurial muriate or sublimate. This 

 theory is corroborated, by comparing the quantity of gas estimated to be contained 

 in the fulminating mercury, with the quantities of gas yielded from alcohol and 

 nitrous acid, with and without mercury in solution ; not to mention that more 

 ether, as well as more gas, is produced without the intervention of mercury ; and 

 that, according to the Dutch chemists, the product of ether is always in the inverse 

 ratio to the product of nitrous etherized gas. Should a further proof be thought 

 necessary, of the existence of the nitrous etherized gas in the fulminating mercury, 

 as well as in the white dense fumes, it may be added, that if a mixture of alcohol 

 and nitrous acid holding mercury in solution, be so dilute, and exposed to a tempe- 

 rature so low, that neither ether nor nitrous etherized gas are produced, the fulmi- 

 nating mercury, or the white fumes, will never be generated : for, under such cir- 

 cumstances, the mercury is precipitated chiefly in the state of an inflammable oxalate. 

 Further, when we consider the different substances formed by an union of nitrous 

 acid and alcohol, we are so far acquainted with all, except the ether and the nitrous 

 etherized gas, as to create a presumption, that no others are capable of volatilizing 

 mercury, at the very low temperature in which the white fumes exist, since during 

 some minutes they are permanent over water of 40° Fahrenheit. 



§ l6. Hitherto, as much only has been said of the gas 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 gas ; 1 have further 

 to speak of its peculiarity.* The characteristic properties of the inflammable gas, 

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

 oxygen or nitrous gas. 2dly. It will not explode with oxygen by the electric shock, 

 in a close vessel. 3dly. It burns like hydrocarbonate, but with a bluish green flame. 

 And, 4thly. It is permanent over water. (§ 12.) It is of course either not formed, 

 or is convertible into nitrous gas, by the concentrate nitric and muriatic acids ; be- 

 cause, by those acids, no inflammable gas was extricated from the powder. 



* It must be first noticed, that it is never pure when obtained from the nitrous etherized gas j nor 

 am I aware how it is to be purified, unless the nitrous gas could be taken from it, without being con- 

 verted into nitrous acid ; for, by that acid, it would probably be itself converted into nitrous gas. — Orig. 



