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The Chemical Combination of Water and Ammonia

1893; Springer Nature; Volume: 35; Issue: 893supp Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/scientificamerican02111893-14277supp

1946-7087

Thomas Andreson,

Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction

to strain every hair at the root, and produce continu-of our chosen profession, and advance our association by the combustion in air, giving light and heat, owe ous headaches; and while their headgear may not be to that elevated position we so much desire.Having that state to the rapid combination of oxygen.For of quite so preposterous a shape as man's, they wear it prefaced my paper with these few remarks, I will now instance, if you were to plunge a glowing splinter of much more constantly, since they sit with their heads proceed with the subject matter under consideration.wood into a vessel filled with oxygen, it would bUriit covered in all public places, while he as a rule wears hisThe purpose of chemistry is the investigation of the into flame and burn with great brilliancy.In a similar hat only out of doors.Then, too, women, as a gene-properties of simple and compound bodies, with their manner oxygen acts upon the hUIllan system by means eral thing, enjoy much less vigorous health than men, various combinations and compositions.By the chem-of the lungs.Certain parts of the body are oxidized, eat less nourishing food-pickles and candy often con-ical combination of two bodies, it will be obllerved that by which chemical combination the warmth produced stituting a large part of their diet-are more frequent-heat is often produced.will be recognized as the heat of the body.Iy sufferers from headaches, deficient circulation, gene-By elements are meant only those bodies which, up Upon returning to the subject of hydrogen, we find ral debility, and Heaven only knows what not; and to the present, chemistry has been incapable of analyz-that it is a gas which has also the properties of being yet, with all this, the sorriest specimens of the sex, ing.In olden times there were but eight of these devoid of color, smell, and taste.It is the lightest of physically, often luxuriate in the most abundant suits bodies known, viz.: Gold, silver, coppel', iron, lead, all bodies, has a specific weight, air=l, of but 0'O(i!l2; of hair.quicksilver, tin, and sulphur.Slowly that number in-hence, is nearly fourteen times as light as air.By Now, why should one sex enjoy suuh comparative creased from the second and third centuries, so that in reason of its low specific gravity it is frequently utilized immunity from the results of practices that are produc-the eighteenth century we find it about doubled.This for inflating balloons.While hydrogen will undergo ing such disastrous effects upon the personal appear-list was augmented by arsenic, bismuth, zinc, platinum, combustion when in the presence of oxygen, it will not ance of the other?The answer, I take it, is to be etc., until in 1774 when, with the discovery of oxygen burn by itself.Hydrogen, when ignited in presence found in a cause which Mr. Darwin claims to have and the subsequent researches in regard to the manner of oxygen, burns with a dim flame and the product is been the chief factor in all cases where the purely of combustion or oxidation, it gave birth to the science water.ornamentaUlualities of a species are concerned-sexual of chemistry.Hydrogen can be produced by passing steam through selection.While women, under the pressure of publicTo Priestley the world is indebted for the discovery a tube filled with iron wire and heated to bright red sentiment against" old maids, " and the more urgent of oxygen, although a year later Scheele's investiga-ness; the steam will precipitate to its component parts; pressure of material necessities, will as a general thing tions led him also to prove its existence.In the light the oxygen will combine with the iron and the hydro Illarry anybody they think likely to give them a sup-of this great contribution to science, the old time gen will be liberated.Hydrogen is found in nearly all port, regardless of personal defects or attractions, men theories were overthrown by the fam ous French savant, organic bodies, and its principal combination in the are more fastidious, and it goes without saying that a Lavoisier, whose investigations in that direction pre-economy of nature is with oxygen, the indispensable bald-headed woman would stand little chance, to use sented it to the scientific world so that it has formed necessity of all organisms.Mr. Darwin's argument, of leaving offspring to inherit the basis of modern chemistry.Another combination of hydrogen which has caused her deficiencies.I have never known a woman who As I have before remarked, a body which is produced ice machine engineers so many vexations and anxious would Illake a bald head an invincible objection to a by a chemical combination contains fundamental pro-moments is that of its combination with nitrogen to mall who was eligible in other respects.Most of them perties, as its component parts bear evidence, which form ammonia.The condensation of three volumes of nre indifferent to that peculiarity, while some even would have appeared incredible in the tenth century, hydrogen and one volume of nitrogen into two volumes like it; they think it looks intellectual, as more than although to-day it appears as a matter of course-a produces that body which is so val uable and important one young woman, unsuspicious of the grave scientific natural thing.Who would at that period have for a to us.Ammonia is a colorless and very pungent gas motive underlying my frivolous" chaff, " has assured moment considered that silver-white quicksilver lurked which gTeatly affects the eyes and breathing organs, IIH1.in the purple-red cinnabar?Our ancestors would have <lausing, headache, and is also very poisonous.It is After occupying myself for some time with observa-smiled incredulously had any one advanced the idea lighter than atmospheric air and is easily dissol ved in tions upon old and middle aged people, it occurred to that one of the most necessary of all necessities of life, water, the latter being capable of absorbing 725 times me that the influence of this subtile factor, 'sexual selec-.water, was simply the combination of two gases, in its volume of ammoniacal gas.In all cases of disasso tion, could best be determined by observations upon I certain proportions.Who, in the tenth century, would ciation where these two gases, nitrogen and hydrogen, boys and girls under twenty, in whom, it is to be pre i not have treated with ridicule a theory that the much-are released, ammonia is produced at the same time.sumed, the influences of heredity have not yet been I coveted and precious stone, the diamond, wasIt is formed by decay as well and by the distillation of snpplemented to any great extent by other causes.crystallized coal, which at certain temperatures bodies containing nitrogen.Accordingly, I had printed, and sent out to teachers be burned.I deeply regret that I am not in a position to bring and school superintendents, five hundred blanks, call-Water, as it appears in nature, we can consider as a before you at the present time further data in regard ing for statistics on the subject, with the request that mechanical combination of molecules, of water and air to the manufacture of commercial ammonia.It has they be filled and returned to me within the year.Of (explained by illustration), and these properties will never been my good fortune to visit an ammonia fac the five hundred, eighty-six were returned, and some demonstrate the reason of the great evaporation of tory, and it is much to be desired by us all that some of these contain discrepancies that render them practi-water upon the firing up of steam boilers. in which the brother will, at some future meeting, give us a descrip cally worthless-a result, be it remarked in passing, individual molecules of the water expand by being tion of the manner of its manufact ure for use in ice which betrays a curious indifference on the part of warmed and disappear at length in the air.machines.The general idea that ammonia is COlll teachers to matters of biolo�ical interest.The Atlan-The reverse is apparent in the condensation of steam bustible is decidedly wrong, as only in the air and in tic City schools are the only .:Jnesfrom which I succeed-when air is again a factor.It is not a long while ago oxygen itself will ammonia burn with a yellow flallle, ed in obtaining anything like a full report, my efforts that I was compelled to hear it often remarked by as before mentioned.Ammonia is lighter than ntmo being ably seconded by their energetic and wide awake tholle who should have known better, that only by a spheric air, and hence it is im possible to remove the air superintendent, Major W. F. Slaton.direct contact of water and steam could a good vacuum found in the system from the highest point in the con-Now, while the statistics at my disposfll are too mea-be had, as by precipitation a smaller volume would denser, without considerable loss of gas.gel' to warrlllt any definite conclusion, it is neverthe-ensue.This is, nevertheless, an error, because in its As, in my practice, I have found no beaten track, I less a significant fact that out of a total of 1,196 males endeavor to ret.urn to its source, also in taking up the am quite anxious to learn the views and experiences of between the ages of ten and twenty, ten cases were air and expelling the exhausted air, the vacuum will my brother engineers.The many uses and demands reported as �howing signs of baldness-that is, 0'0084, be apparent.for ammonia b2'_mankind present themselves in a great or over eight-tenths of one per cent.-while in a total Hence, it is patent to every one who has charge of a many ways.We especially, as engineers, have to Illeet of 1,374 females of the same age, but one single case is large compound engine, with surface condensation, face to face the question of the evaporation of alllmo reported, or about 0'00073, a little over 160 of one per that by means of the indepflndent circulation pump, nia.A liquid which possesses the peculiarity of creating