228 Mr. E. Howard on a new fulminating Mercury. 



The characteristic properties of the inflammable gas, seem 

 to me to be the following : 



ist. 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. (Section 12.) 



It is of course either not formed, or is convertible into nitrous 

 gas, by the concentrate nitric and muriatic acids ; because, 

 by those acids, no inflammable gas was extricated from the 

 powder. 



Should this inflammable gas prove not to be a hydrocar- 

 bonate, I shall be disposed to conclude, that it has nitrogen for 

 its basis ; indeed, I am at this moment inclined to that opi- 

 nion, because I find that Dr. Priestley, during his experiments 

 on his dephlogisticated nitrous air, once produced a gas which 

 seems to have resembled this inflammable gas, both in the mode 

 of burning, and in the colour of the flame. 



After the termination of the common solution of iron in 

 spirit of nitre, he used heat, and got, says he,* " such a kind 

 " of air as I had brought nitrous air to be, by exposing it to 

 " iron, or liver of sulphur ; for, on the first trial, a candle 

 " burned in it with a much enlarged flame. At another time, 

 " the application of a candle to air produced in this manner, 

 " was attended with a real though not a loud explosion ; and, 

 " immediately after this, a greenish coloured flame descended 

 "from the top to the bottom of the vessel in which the air was 



* Priestley on Air, Vol. II. p. 58. Birmingham. 1790. 



