This mode of obtaining nitre is no longer practised to any extent, since it is now more conveniently obtained from the treatment of nitrate of soda with potassium chloride.
Cause of Nitrification.
We have adverted to these nitre plantations as showing how the conditions most favourable for the development of nitrification were recognised long before anything was known as to the true nature of the process. It was only in 1877 that the formation of nitrates in the soil was proved to be due to the action of micro-organic life,[104] by the two French chemists, Schloesing and Müntz, who discovered the fact when carrying out experiments to see if the presence of humic matter was essential to the purification of sewage by soil. In these experiments sewage was made to filter slowly through a certain depth of soil (the time occupied in this filtration being eight days). It was found that nitrification of the sewage took place. By treating the soil with chloroform[105] it was found that it no longer possessed the power of inducing the nitrification of the sewage. When, however, a small portion of a nitrifying soil was added, the power was regained. From this it was naturally inferred that nitrification was effected by some kind of ferment. This conclusion was soon confirmed by subsequent experiments by Warington at Rothamsted, who showed that the power of nitrification could be communicated to media, which did not nitrify, by simply seeding them with a nitrifying substance, and that light was unfavourable to the process. Since then the question has formed the subject of a number of researches by Mr Warington at Rothamsted, as well as by Schloesing and Müntz, Munro, Dehérain, P. F. Frankland, Winogradsky, Gayon and Dupetit, Kellner, Plath, Pichard, Landolt, Leone, and others. From these researches we have obtained the following information with regard to the nature of the organisms concerned in this process, and the conditions most favourable for their development.
Ferments effecting Nitrification.
The importance of isolating and studying them microscopically was recognised at an early period in these researches. Messrs Schloesing and Müntz were the first to attempt this. They reported that they had successfully accomplished this, and described the organism as consisting of very small, round, or slightly elongated corpuscles, occurring either singly or two together. According, however, to the most recent researches of Warington, Winogradsky, and P. F. Frankland, nitrification is not effected by a single micro-organism, but by two, both of which have been successfully isolated and studied.[106] The first of these to be discovered and isolated was the nitrous organism, which effects the conversion of ammonia into nitrous acid; the second, which has only been lately isolated by Warington and Winogradsky, effects the conversion of nitrous acid into nitric acid. Each of these ferments thus has its distinctive function to perform in this most important process, the nitric ferment being unable to act on ammonia, as the nitrous ferment is unable to convert nitrites into nitrates. Both ferments occur in enormous quantities in the soil, and seem to be influenced, so far as is at present known, by the same conditions. Their action will thus proceed together. Nearly all we know as yet on the subject of their nature is with regard to the nitrous ferment.
Appearance of Nitrous Organism.
Mr Warington[107] thus describes the appearance of the nitrous organism: "As found in suspension in a freshly nitrified solution, it consists largely of nearly spherical corpuscles, varying extremely in size. The largest of these corpuscles barely reaches a diameter of 1/1000th of a millimeter; and some are so minute as to be hardly discernible in photographs, although shown there with a surface one million times greater than their own. The larger ones are frequently not strictly circular. These forms are universally present in nitrifying cultures. The larger organisms are sometimes seen in the act of dividing."
So far as at present known, the nitric organism is very similar in appearance to the nitrous organism, so much so that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. As the same conditions influence their development, the process may be regarded as a whole.
Difficulty in isolating them.