heated, with evolution of hydrogen and development of a considerable amount of heat. Even dilute hydrochloric acid acts in the same manner at the ordinary temperature. Beryllium also acts easily on sulphuric acid, but it is remarkable that neither dilute nor strong nitric acid acts on beryllium, which seems especially able to resist oxidising agents. Potassium hydroxide acts on beryllium as on aluminium, hydrogen being disengaged and the metal dissolved, but ammonia has no action on it. These properties of metallic beryllium seem to isolate it from the series of the other metals described in this chapter, but if we compare the properties of calcium, magnesium, and beryllium we shall see that magnesium occupies a position intermediate between the other two. Whilst calcium decomposes water with great ease, magnesium does so with difficulty, and beryllium not at all. The peculiarities of beryllium among the metals of the alkaline earths recall the fact that in the series of the halogens we saw that fluorine differed from the other halogens in many of its properties and had the smallest atomic weight. The same is the case with regard to beryllium among the other metals of the alkaline earths.
In addition to the above characteristics of the compounds of the metals of the alkaline earths, we must add that they, like the alkali metals, combine with nitrogen and hydrogen, and while sodium nitride (obtained by igniting the amide of sodium, Chapter XII., Note ) and lithium nitride (obtained by heating lithium in nitrogen, Chapter XIII., Note ) have the composition R 3 N, so the nitrides of magnesium (Note ), calcium, strontium, and barium have the composition R 3 N 2 , for example, Ba 3 N 2 , as might be expected from the diatomicity of the metals of the alkaline earths and from the relation of the nitrides to ammonia, which is obtained from all of these compounds by the action