This singular exertion of attractions by a simple body, appears highly improbable a priori, nor did I admit it, till the formation of ammoniac, and the non-oxygenation of the sulphur, were made evident by many experiments.
In those experiments, the diminution of the nitrous gas was not uniformly the same. It varied from ¹¹/₂₀ to ¹⁴/₂₀. In the most accurate of them, 5 cubic inches of nitrous gas were converted into 2.2 of nitrous oxide. Consequently the quantity of ammoniac formed was,047 grains.
In experiments on the conversion of nitrous gas into nitrous oxide, by sulphurated hydrogene, the gases should be rendered as dry as possible. The presence of water considerably retards the decomposition.
b. The sulphures[137] dissolved in water convert nitrous gas into nitrous oxide. This decomposition is not, however, produced by the simple abstraction of oxygene from the nitrous gas to form sulphuric acid. It depends as well on the decomposition of the sulphurated hydrogene dissolved in the solution, or liberated from it. In this process sulphur is deposited on the surface of the fluid, sulphuric acid is formed, and the diminution, making the necessary corrections, is nearly the same as when free sulphurated hydrogene is employed.
It is extremely probable that sulphurated hydrogene, in combination with the alkalies, as well as with water, is capable of being slowly decomposed by nitrous gas.
V. Decomposition of Nitrous Gas by Nascent Hydrogene.
a. When nitrous gas, is exposed to wetted iron filings, a diminution of its volume slowly takes place; and after a certain time, it is found converted into nitrous oxide.
In this process ammoniac[138] is formed, and the iron partially oxydated.
The water in contact with the iron is decomposed by the combination of its oxygene with that substance, and of its hydrogene with a portion of the oxygene and nitrogene of the nitrous gas, to form water and ammoniac.
That the iron is not oxydated at the expence of the oxygene of the nitrous gas, appears very probable from the analogy between this process, and the mutual decomposition of nitrous gas and sulphurated hydrogene. Besides, dry iron filings effect no change whatever in nitrous gas, at common temperatures.