potassium nitrite and ammonium chloride are salts which, on interchanging their metals, give potassium chloride and ammonium nitrite, NH 4 NO 2 , which breaks up into water and nitrogen. This reaction does not take place without the aid of heat, but it proceeds very easily at a moderate temperature. Of the resultant substances, the nitrogen only is gaseous. Pure nitrogen may be obtained by drying the resultant gas and passing it through a solution of sulphuric acid (to absorb a certain quantity of ammonia which is evolved in the reaction).
Nitrogen is a gaseous substance which does not differ much in physical properties from air; its density, referred to hydrogen, is approximately equal to 14—that is, it is slightly lighter than air, its density referred to air being 0·972; one litre of nitrogen weighs 1·257 gram. Nitrogen mixed with oxygen, which is slightly heavier than air, forms air. It is a gas which, like oxygen and hydrogen, is liquefied with difficulty, and is but little soluble in water and other liquids. Its absolute boiling point7 is about -140°; above this temperature it is not liquefiable by pressure, and at lower temperatures it remains a gas at a pressure of 50 atmospheres. Liquid nitrogen boils at -193°, so that it may be employed as a source of great cold. At about -203°, in vaporising under a decrease of pressure, nitrogen solidifies into a colourless snow-like mass. Nitrogen does not burn,8 does not support combustion, is not absorbed by any of the reagents used in gas analysis, at least at the ordinary temperature—in a word, it presents a whole series of negative chemical properties; this is expressed by saying that this element has no energy for combination. Although it is capable of forming compounds both with oxygen and hydrogen as well as with carbon, yet these compounds are only formed under particular circumstances, to which we will directly turn our attention. At a red heat nitrogen combines with boron, titanium, and silicon, barium, magnesium, &c., forming very stable nitrogenous compounds,9 whose properties are entirely different from those of nitrogen with hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. However, the combination of nitrogen with carbon, although it does not take place directly between the elements at a red heat, yet proceeds with comparative ease by heating a mixture of charcoal with an alkaline carbonate, especially potassium carbonate or barium carbonate, to redness, carbo-nitrides or cyanides of the metals being formed; for instance, K2CO3 + 4C + N2 = 2KCN + 3CO.10
Nitrogen is found with oxygen in the air, but they do not readily combine. Cavendish, however, in the last century, showed that nitrogen combines with oxygen under the influence of a series of electric sparks. Electric sparks in passing through a moist11 mixture of nitrogen and oxygen cause these elements to combine, forming reddish-brown fumes of oxides of nitrogen,12 which form nitric acid,13 NHO3. The presence of the latter is easily recognised, not only from its reddening litmus paper, but also from its acting as a powerful oxidiser even of mercury. Conditions similar to these occur in nature, during a thunderstorm or in other electrical discharges which take place in the atmosphere; whence it may be taken for granted that air and rain-water always contain traces of nitric and nitrous acids.14 Besides which Crookes (1892) showed that under certain circumstances and when electricity of high potential15 passes through the air, the combination of nitrogen with oxygen is accompanied by the formation of a true flame. This was also observed previously (1880) during the passage of electrical discharges through the air.
Further observations showed that under the influence of electrical discharges, silent as well as with sparks, nitrogen is able to enter into many reactions with hydrogen and with many hydrocarbons; although these reactions cannot be effected by exposure to a red heat. Thus, for instance, a series of electric sparks passed through a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen causes them to combine and form ammonia or nitrogen hydride, NH 3 , composed of one volume of nitrogen and three volumes of hydrogen. This combination is limited to the formation of 6 per cent. of ammonia, because ammonia is decomposed, although not entirely