Chemistry and Physics. 107 
and the sample is even somewhat transparent after drying as far as 
the acid acted upon it, but all the threads in the sample can be seen in 
their whole course. 
Cotton stuffs containing no linen dissolve quickly and entirely in the 
acid; or if left but one instant in it, become so brittle and gummy 
that no one will fail to recognize it as cotton when treated in the above 
manner. 
s were converted into nitric acid or peroxyd of nitrogen, by oxy- 
gen or oxydating gases. 
Upon this foundation the following view is based. Animal substances 
exercise a beneficial effect only when carbonate of ammonia is dis- 
engaged by their decomposition; in like manner, according to Kuhl- 
mann, the nitrates are effectual as manures, only when the nitric acid 
has been converted into ammonia by the deoxydizing influence of 
putrid fermentation. Me ccaks 
_ Various recent experiments are brought to prove that this opinion is 
correct, and that similar conversions to those observed i 
place in liquids. Nitre thrown into a mixture of zine or iron and sul- 
phuric or better dilute hydrochloric acid, retards or stops the disengage- 
ment of hydrogen until the whole of the nitric acid is converted into 
ammonia. Nascent sulphuretted hydrogen produces the same effect, 
with deposition of sulphur. A current of sulphuretted hydrogen passed 
through a solution of chlorid of antimony and a nitrate, in like manner 
transforms the nitric acid into ammonia, é: 
The author entertains the opinion that the ammonia of the atmo- 
ere or of manures, is converted at the surface of the soil into nitrates, 
and that this process of nitrification prevents the waste of ammonia ; 
these nitrates are in their turn deoxydized by fermentation and afford 
ammonia to the plant. 
The peroxyd of manganese is proposed as an agent for the perpetual 
transference of the oxygen of the air to ammonia, producing its conver- 
Sion into nitric acid; MnO, being deoxydized by the ammonia and the 
resulting MnO being converted by the air into Ma 30,4, which in its turn 
is deoxydated. 
11. Anhydrous Alcohol; by M. Casorta, (Phil. Mag., Nov., 1846, 
from Jour. de Chim. Med.)—Perfectly dry sulphate of copper is pro- 
posed as a means of rendering alcohol anhydrous, and as a test for the 
