354) Afr. Davyds Electrochemical Researches on 
with the absorption of oxygene, when it is exposed to air ; 
and secondly, by its forming ammonia in water, whilst hydro- 
gene is evolved, and the quicksilver gradually becomes free. 
An operation, in which hydrogene and nitrogene exhibit 
metallic properties, or in which a metallic substance is appa- 
rently composed from its elements, cannot fail to fix the 
attention of chemists : and the peculiar interest which it of- 
fered in its relations to the general theory of electrochemical 
science, induced me to examine the circumstances connected 
with it minutely and extensively. 
In repeating the process of the Swedish chemists, I found 
that to form an amalgam from fifty or sixty grains of mer- 
cury, in contact with saturated solution of ammonia, required 
a considerable time, and that this amalgam greatly changed 
even in the short period required for removing it from the 
solution. 
I was however able, in this mode of operating, to witness all 
the results they have stated, and I soon found simple and 
more easy means of producing the effect, and circumstances 
under which it could be more distinctly analysed. 
The experiments which I have detailed in the Bakerian 
lecture for 1806, proved that ammonia is disengaged from the 
ammoniacal salts, at the negative surface in the Voltaic cir- 
cuit; and I concluded that under this agency, it may be acted 
on in what is called the nascent state, when it was reasonable 
to conclude it would be more readily deoxygenated and com- 
bined with quicksilver. 
On this view of the subject, I made a cavity in a piece of 
muriate of ammonia ; into this a globule of mercury, weighing 
about fifty grains, was introduced. The muriate was slightly 
