NITROGEN IS NOT UNDER TWO FORMS IN SOILS. 293 



the produce of a field ; but it was assumed that the 

 case must be different with nitrogen. A surplus of that 

 element, it was surmised, must act, and if it did not, 

 the cause was not ascribed to the field, but to the na- 

 ture and condition of the nitrogenous compounds. 



From this we see that the notion of nitrogen exert- 

 ing the principal influence in agriculture led to unex- 

 ampled confusion of thought and to the most baseless 

 and absurd suppositions. None of the advocates of this 

 theory gave themselves the slightest trouble to extract 

 from the ground one of the nitrogenous compounds, 

 which were deemed inoperative, so as to study its na- 

 ture ; but properties were ascribed to them, of which 

 nothing could be known, because the things themselves 

 were not known. 



As the advocates of this theory can say nothing 

 about the nature of the nitrogenous compounds present 

 in the ground, they want to make us believe that noth- 

 ing at all is known about them. But no one, who has 

 an acquaintance with chemistry, has the smallest doubt 

 or uncertainty respecting the origin of nitrogen in the 

 arable soil. It is derived either from the air, whence 

 it is conveyed to the earth in rain or dew ; or from or- 

 ganic substances accuumulated from a series of gener- 

 ations of dead and decayed plants, or else from animal 

 remains contained in the earth, or incorporated with it 

 by man in the form of excrements. Animal and human 

 excrements, bodies of animals in the earth, corpses in 

 their coffins, all vanish, with the exception of their in- 

 combustible matters, after a series of years ; the nitro- 

 gen of their constituents is converted into gaseous am- 

 monia, and is distributed in the surrounding soil. The 

 remains of extinct animal life which are embedded, to 

 an enormous extent, in sedimentary strata, or which 

 of themselves constitute whole masses of rock, attest 

 the extraordinary distribution of organic life in the 

 former ages of the earth ; and it is the nitrogenous con- 

 stituents of these animal bodies, passing over into am- 

 monia and nitric acid, which still play an important 

 part in the economy of the vegetable and animal world. 



