2 1 6 Electrochemical Researches on 



weight of new matter, is rendered a solid, yet has its specific 

 gravity diminished from 13-5 to less than 3, and it retains 

 all its metallic characters ; its colour, lustre, opacity, and con^ 

 ducting powers remaining unimpaired. 



It is scarcely possible to conceive that a substance which 

 fprms with mercury so perfect an amalgam, should not be 

 metallic in its own nature*; an<l on this idea, to assist the 

 discussion concerning it, it may be conveniently termed am- 

 monium. 



But on what do the metallic properties of ammonium de- 

 pend'? 



Are hydrogen and nitrogen both metals in the aeriform 

 state, at the usual temperatures of the atmosphere, bodies of 

 the same character," as zinc and quicksilver would be in the 

 heat of ignition ? 



•Or are these gases, in their common form, oxides, which 

 become metallized by deoxidation ? 



Or are the simple bodies not metallic in their own nature, 

 but capable of composing a metal in their deoxygenated, and 

 an alkali in their oxygenated state ? 



These problems, the second of which was stated by Mr. Ca- 

 vendish tome, and the last of which belongs to Mr. Berzelius, 

 offer most important objects of investigation. 



I have made some experiments in relation to them,buf as 

 yet unsuccessfully. I have heated the amalgam of potas- 

 sium, in contact with both hydrogen and nitrogen, but with- 

 out attaining their metallization ; but this fact cannot be 

 considerered as decisively for or against any one of these con- 

 jectures. 



I mentioned in the Bakerian lecture for 1807, that a mo- 



* The nature of the compounds of sulphur and phosphorus with mercury 

 favours this opinion ; these inflammable bodies by combination impair its 

 metallic properties; cinnabar is a non-conductor, and it would seem from 

 Pelletier's experiments,^?;, de Ckimie, vol xiii. p. 125, that the phosphuret 

 of mercury is not metallic in its characters; charcoal is a conductor, and in 

 plumbago carbon approaches very near to a metal in its characters, so that 

 the metallic l.ature of steel does not militate against the reasoning in the texi. 

 The only facts which I am acquainted with, that do militate against it, are the 

 metallic characters of some of the sulphurets and phosphurgts of the imper- 

 fect metals. 



dification 



