the Decomposition of the Earths, &c. 359 
of the earths in any considerable quantities, they are much 
more permament. 
Triple compounds of this kind, when carefully wiped, 
scarcely produce any ammonia under naphtha, or oil, and may 
be preserved for a considerable time in closed glass tubes, a 
little hydrogene being the only product evolved from them. 
I heated a triple amalgam obtained from ammonia by potas- 
sium, and which had been wiped by bibulous paper in a dry 
plate-glass tube over mercury ; a considerable elevation of 
temperature was required before any gaseous matter was 
emitted, but the heat was raised till gas was rapidly formed, 
and the whole of the amalgam expelled from the tube : in 
cooling, the mercury rose very quickly in it, so that a great 
part of the gaseous matter had been either mercury or water, 
in vapour, or something which the mercury had absorbed in 
cooling The small quantity which was permanent, did not 
equal one half the volume of the amalgam. 
On the idea that this gas might be a compound of hydro- 
gene and nitrogene in the state of deoxygenation, I mixed a 
small quantity of oxygene gas with it, but no change of volume 
took place ; I then exposed it to naphtha, when one half of it 
was absorbed, which by the effect the naphtha produced upon 
turmeric must have been ammonia ; the remaining gas 
analyzed was found to consist of the oxygene that had been 
introduced, and of hydrogene and nitrogene to each other in 
the proportion of nearly four to one. 
At first I was perplexed by this result, which seemed to 
prove the production of ammonia, independent of the pre- 
sence of any substance which could furnish oxygene to it, and 
to shew that its amalgamation was merely owing to its being 
