g8 Mr. Davy’s Experiments on 
been for the most part negative ; but I shall venture to state 
them fully, because I hope they will tend to elucidate some 
points of discussion, and may prevent other chemists from 
pursuing the same paths of enquiry, and which at first view 
do not appear unpromising. 
The formation of nitrogene has been often asserted to take 
place in many processes, in which none of its known combi- 
nations were concerned. It is not necessary to enter into the 
discussion of the ideas entertained by the German chemists 
on the origin of nitrogene, produced during the passage of 
water through red hot tubes, or the speculations of Girtanner, 
founded on these and other erroneous data ; the early dis- 
covery of Priestley on the passage of gasses through red 
hot tubes of earthen ware, the accurate researches of Ber- 
thollet, and the experiments of Bouillon la-grange, have 
.afforded a complete solution of this problem. 
One of the most striking cases, in w T hich nitrogene has been 
supposed to appear without the presence of any other matter 
but water, which can be conceived to supply its elements, 
is in the decomposition and recomposition of water by elec- 
tricity.* To ascertain if nitrogene could be generated in this 
manner, I had an apparatus made, by which a quantity of 
water could be acted upon by Voltaic electricity, so as to pro- 
duce oxygene and hydrogene with great rapidity, and in 
which these gasses could be detonated, without the exposure 
of the water to the atmosphere ; so that this fluid was in con- 
tact with platina, mercury, and glass only ; and the wires for 
completing the Voltaic, and common electrical circuit, were 
• 
* See Dr. Psarson’s elaborate experiments, on the decomposition of water by 
electrical explosions. Nicholson’s Journal, 410. vol. I. page 301. 
