CHAPTER XXVII
NITROGEN
By Chester G. Gilbert
USES OF NITROGEN
Plant life requires nitrogen and gets it in the normal cycle of events. But when the occasion calls for stimulating the growth of plant life by feeding, by soil fertilization in other words, nitrogen in available form is indispensable. Further down along the channels of food supply it exercises another and equally important function in providing the chemical (ammonia) around which the modern practice of refrigeration is built. Likewise, the chemistry of explosives is basically the chemistry of nitrogen compounds. Nor is this all, for chemical operations in general—hence research and industrial chemistry in general—involve the employment of nitrogen compounds. Such, in brief, is its status. On each of three major counts, the interests of food production, of food distribution, and of national defense, it is indispensable; and of no less consequence is the retinue of less conspicuous agencies serving the interests of chemistry at every turn.
GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION
The development of fixed nitrogen sources is conditioned by three simple chemical facts. With these three simple facts in mind the rest follows largely as a matter of inference. The facts are:
That under all ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure, free nitrogen is a gas.
That it is extremely inert and indisposed to participate with other elements in the formation of chemical compounds.
That such combinations when they do occur are characteristically soluble.
In consequence of these three governing principles, along with its relationship to organic matter, as alluded to under the preceding caption, nitrogen has four habits of occurrence, worth considering as at least potential sources of supply.