But Fabroni, full of the then novel conception of acids and bases and double decompositions, propounded the hypothesis that sugar is an oxide with two bases, and the ferment a carbonate with two bases; that the carbon of the ferment unites with the oxygen of the sugar, and gives rise to carbonic acid; while the sugar, uniting with the nitrogen of the ferment, produces a new substance analogous to opium.

Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air.

The cause of the ruin was "the extraction of the nitrogen from the atmosphere.

"In the same connection he characterizes nitrogen as a substance 'not condensible under fifty atmospheres,' leaving the reader to infer that the preceding ingredient on the list, oxygen, is condensible (liquefiable) within that limit of pressure, and that nitrogen becomes liquid at or above it; whereas neither oxygen nor nitrogen has ever yet been compressed into a liquid, although a force of more than fifty times

Still more strikingly is this shown in the days of complete fast, when pure spring-water is seen to cause a greater loss of nitrogen than infusion of tea, in spite of the supply of nitrogen contained in the latter.

It is possible, with the same process, to employ a mixture (in volumes) of two parts of protoxide of nitrogen with one and a half parts of atmospheric air, or even protoxide of nitrogen alone.