ON  NITROGEN  IN  MANURES  AND  SOIL. 
155 
or  two  in  an  open  vessel  to  a  temperature  of  120Q  C.  The  cooled 
mass  is  rubbed  with  a  little  water  and  carbonate  of  lime  and 
filtered.  The  filtrate  contains  the  lime  salt  of  the  new  acid, 
mixed  with  the  excess  of  saccharine  matter  ;  it  is  precipitated 
by  twice  its  volume  of  common  alcohol,  and  the  precipitate 
washed  with  alcohol  diluted  with  an  equal  volume  of  water. 
The  lime  salt  is  again  dissolved  in  water  and  again  precipitated 
as  before,  and  these  operations  several  times  repeated.  From 
the  purified  salt  the  acid  may  be  separated  by  oxalic  acid.  The 
author  represents  the  reactions  which  result  in  the  formation  of 
the  new  acids  by  the  simplest  possible  formulas  representing  the 
ratio  of  the  bodies  concerned.  These  formulas  show  that,  as  in 
the  case  alcohol  in  the  sulphovinates,  the  saccharine  body  minus 
a  certain  quantity  of  water,  replaces  in  the  acid  a  portion  of  the 
base  necessary  to  saturate  this  acid  in  the  isolated  state.  It  is 
probable  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  compounds  of  glycerine,  the 
same  sugar  may  form  many  compounds  with  tartaric  acid.  The 
author  describes  only  those  which  he  has  obtained.  For  the 
formulas  we  must  refer  to  the  original  paper  American  Jour- 
nal of  Science  and  Arts,  January •  1858,  from  Oomptes  Hendus. 
[Note  From  the  above  it  will  be  seen  that  we  owe  to  Ber- 
thelot  the  discovery  of  the  true  constitution  of  three  entire  series 
of  organic  bodies,  viz.,  the  glycerids  or  fatty  bodies  ;  the  sugars 
and  their  congeners  ;  and  the  glucosids  or  acid  and  neutral  bodies 
which  split  into  sugar  and  other  acid  or  neutral  bodies  by  boil- 
ing with  acids,  alkalies  or  water. — Ed.  Am.  Journ.  Sci.  and 
Arts. 
RESEARCHES  UPON  THE  INFLUENCE  WHICH  ASSIMILABLE 
NITROGEN  IN  MANURES  EXERTS  UPON  THE  PRODUCTION 
OF  VEGETABLE  MATTER ;  AND  (2.)  UPON  THE  QUANTITY 
OF  NITRATES  CONTAINED  IN  THE  SOIL  AND  IN  WATER  OF 
VARIOUS  KINDS.    By  M.  Boussingault. 
Several  years  ago  Boussingault  demonstrated,  in  the  clearest 
way,  that  plants  are  incapable  of  assimilating  the  free  nitrogen 
of  the  atmosphere.  Two  years  ago,  in  a  paper  communicated  to 
the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  he  showed  that  nitrates  emi- 
