AMMONIA NITRATE WITH AMMONIA. 
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Ammonia oxalate is quite insoluble. 
Ammonia acetate (moist crystals dissolve freely). 
Benzene , oil of turpentine, indigo, strychnine, wax, and olive-oil are insoluble. 
Cane-sugar, gum-arabic, litmus, tannin, phenol, and aniline are soluble. 
Gelatin is converted into a flocculent substance. 
Butyric ether is slightly soluble without decomposition. 
Methyl iodide is insoluble, but is slowly decomposed. Gas escapes, which is probably 
methylamine. 
Ether is insoluble, but it causes the decomposition of the liquid, the ammonia 
bubbling through the ether, and the nitrate depositing. 
Chloroform dissolves to a small extent, and separates again unaltered on the addition 
of water. 
10. The liquid compound of ammonia nitrate and ammonia is a good electrolyte. 
With two Bunsen’s elements hydrogen gas is freely evolved at the negative electrode,, 
and one third of its volume of nitrogen gas at the positive electrode, as in the electro- 
lysis of aqueous solution of ammonia. Large quantities of ammonia gas escape along 
with these gases by diffusion, so that the electrolysis appears to take place much more 
rapidly than it does do in reality. The loss of ammonia causes deposition of ammonia 
nitrate to occur, but a great difference is observed between the quantities of it deposited 
at the two electrodes. At the positive electrode, where the escape of gas is less, the 
nitrate soon begins to precipitate and also to crust the surface of the liquid ; while at 
the negative electrode, where the escape of gas is greater, the nitrate does not appear 
for some time, and then only slowly, — that is to say, ammonia nitrate accumulates at 
the positive electrode, and ammonia itself at the negative one. The electrolysis of the 
nitrate and the secondary decomposition of the ammonia accounts for the above pheno- 
mena : for H 4 N . N0 3 being resolved into NTI 4 and N0 3 , ammonia and hydrogen are 
set free at the negative electrode, while N0 3 appears potentially, though not actually, 
at the positive electrode, where it enters into reaction with ammonia to form ammonia 
nitrate and nitrogen, thus : — 
3N0 3 +4NH 3 =3N0 3 NH 4 +N, 
the N being equivalent to the H 3 , which appears simultaneously at the negative 
electrode. 
No reduction of the nitrate to a less oxidized salt takes place at the negative elec- 
trode. This is a fact of some interest, because it is opposed to the hypothesis that a 
nascent body possesses a chemical activity not belonging to it in its ordinary free con- 
dition ; for here is basylous hydrogen, at the moment of its liberation, exerting no 
action on the nitrate, although zinc and other metals so readily reduce it under various 
conditions, including that of its solution in ammonia*. 
* Ammonium amalgam also appears to have during its decomposition no reducing action upon a nitrate, 
a fact, however, which may be due to the amalgam not being really a compound of ammonium. 
