Full text: Vol. II (2)

COMPOSITION OF VOLATILE ALKALI. 
245 
ment, produces the water which Dr. Priestley observed, and the hy 
drogen disappeared. But, in the second experiment, the azote, which 
is a simple substance, and muſt have existed in some of the ingredi 
ents, but cannot be demonstrated in minium carefully prepared, must 
have come from the ammonia, and muft have been one of its ingre 
dients. The other is, in all probability, hydrogen ; for it is a simple 
fubstance, and it is yielded by putrid muscle when digested with ni 
tric acid; which putrid muſcle alfo yields volatile alkali. It yields 
volatile alkali only when it ceaſes to yield difengaged azote, the putre 
factive process having combined it with the hydrogen. 
This is the general theory, founded on a very few experiments in 
deed, but these abundantly simple. They are not, perhaps, decifive ; 
but this theory gathers strength by attending to a number of more 
complex facts, and taking along with us the two discoveries of Mr. 
Cavendish, —the composition of water, and that of the nitrous acid, as 
propositions fully demonstrated. 
1. Our newspapers inform us that the French chemists procured 
saltpetre for the army, by blowing alkaline gas, and even putrid 
steams, through red hot substances which readily yield oxygen. We 
know that such ſteams yield both inflammable air and azotic gas. 
The laſt of these seizes part of the oxygen presented to it, and forms 
nitrous acid, while another part combines with the inflammable air, 
and composes water, which dilutes the acid. It seems to be for such 
reasons that putrescent substances are useful in nitre beds, and that 
the nitre first obtained is frequently nitrous ammoniac. 
We often find the older chemifts exprefsing their surprise at the 
ſtrong ſmell of volatile alkali from the mixture of substances which 
contain none. Thus, iron or copper filings, when dissolved in strong 
nitrous acid, often emit the ſmell of volatile alkali, instead of the of 
fensive smell generally emitted from this mixture. The metal may 
be supposed to decompose the water; and the hydrogen, uniting with 
the azote (now redundant in the nitrous gas in consequence of the dis- 
solution of some metal by the acid) will form ammonia.
	        
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