S. W. Johnson on Nitrification. 241 
T. 8. Hunt’s idea of the synthesis of gelatine, from a carbo- 
hydrate and ammonia.—(Kekulé’s Lehrbuch, ii, 356. 
Certain experiments executed by Mulder, more than twenty 
years ago (Chemistry of Animal and Vegetable Physiology, 
p. 673,) confirm the view we have taken. Two of these were 
“made with beans which had germinated in an atmosphere 
in charcoal, both being moistened with distilled water, free 
from ammonia, The ulmic acid and the charcoal were seve- 
rally mixed up with one per cent. of wood ashes, to supply the 
plants with ash-ingredients. I determined the proportion of 
nitrogen in three beans and also in the plants that were pro- 
duced by three other beans. The results are as follows :— 
White beans in ulmic acid. Brown beans in charcoal. 
Weight. Nitrogen. Weight. Nitrogen. 
ans, 1:465 erm. 50 cub. cent. 1277 27 cub. cent. 
Plants, 4°167--. * 60. ‘ 1°772 “sc “ 
The white beans, therefore, whilst growing into plants in 
substances and an atmosphere, both of which were free of am- 
monia, had obtained more than thrice the quantity of nitro- 
gen that originally existed in the beans ; in the brown beans 
the original quantity was doubled.” Mulder believed this ex- 
Petiment to furnish evidence that ammonia is produced by the 
union of atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen set free in the 
decay of organic matters. But the researches of Will have 
fairly established the impossibility of nascent hydrogen unit- 
0 free nitrogen. The results of the experiments are fully 
explained by assuming that nitrogen was oxydized in nitrifica- 
tion and no other explanation yet proposed, accords with ex- 
isting facts, 
To sum up, the writer believes that in nature, free nitrogen 
enters into combination, in all cases, by oxydation, that the 
of electrical tension has been shown by Meissner to be prece- 
ded by the production of ozone. Bya long series of criti- 
