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amount in rain. The result for science was great, and 
Professor Way continued the enquiry for the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society. Dr. Gilbert, F.R.S., amongst his many 
labours in the department of agricultural science, has made 
this enquiry into ammonia of rain in still later times, but I 
shall not at present quote his results, as this paper does not 
intend to go fully into the subject, but rather to indicate its 
magnitude and importance. The first paper I ever read to 
this Society was on the ammonia found in peat — I was 
unable then to see the extent of the subject. 
I shall give parts of the fuller paper without the long 
tables of results. 
Ammonia must ever be one of the most interesting of 
chemical compounds. It comes from all living organisms, 
and is equally necessary to build them up. To do this it 
must be wherever plants or animals grow or decay. As it is 
volatile, some of it is launched into the air on its escape from 
combination, and in the air it is always found. As it is soluble 
jn water it is found wherever we find water on the surface 
of the earth or in the air, and probably in all natural waters 
even the deepest and most purified. As a part of the 
atmosphere it touches all substances and can be found 
on many ; it is in reality universally on the surface 
of the earth, in the presence of men and animals, per- 
haps attached more or less to all objects, but especially to 
all found within human habitations, and we might also add 
with equal certainty, the habitations of all animals. 
If you pick up a stone in a city and wash off the matter 
on the surface, you will find the water to contain ammonia. 
If you wash a chair or a table or anything in a room, you will 
find ammonia in the washing, and if you wash your hands 
you will find the same ; and your paper, your pen, your 
table cloth, and clothes, all show ammonia, and even the 
glass cover to an ornament has retained some on its surface. 
You will find it not to be a permanent part of the glass, 
