Morning journal and courier., 1881-01-21
Nitrogen and its Mission.

[From the Boston Journal of Chemistry.1
 Having sought to explain the presence of nitrogen in the atmosphere, we come next to the question of it's mission there, and whether the amount is gradually decreasing or the reverse. Nitrogen is an essential constituent of every being that lives and moves upon the surface of the earth, that swiIns in the sea floats in the air above. Not a germ, not spore, not even the animalcule and the fungi, are able to exist without nitrogen. In short, we may exclaim, ''Without nitrogen no life" Every experiment upon spontaneous genera tion involves the use of nitrogenous liquids. large quantity of nitrogen enters into the composition of the animal, yet 1t is not SUD- posed that any of it is absorbed directly from the atmosphere. It is true that nitrogen IS absorbed by the blood in greater quantities than by pure water yet the quantity respired from the lungs differs so little from that taken in during an inspiration that it probably plays other part in respiration than to wash out the carbonic acid brought to the lungs by the venous blood. Hydrogen would answer as well for this purpose. Whence, then, does the animal obtain its supply of nitrogen Evidently not through the lungs, but by means of the stomach, from articles of food and drink in other words, we get our nitrogen from plants in some of which it is present in considerable quantity. The plant alone seems to possess the power of building up, out of mineral substance, those complex organic compounds which are suited for the food of man and animals. The nutritive value of a given article of food depends principally upon the quantity of nitrogen it contains in a form ready for assimilation. Gluten, vegetable al bumen, and caseine are some of the proximate principles formed in the plant and prepared for the use of the animal kingdom. The broad assertion has been made that non-ni- trogenous food contains no nutriment, because 1t is unable to contribute to the formation of blood or flesh.
 The plant possesses the power of absorbing nitrogenous compounds of very simple struct- ure (such as ammonia and nitric acid), of as- simiating their nitrogen, and building up from them bodies of the most complex structure, such as albuminoids. The free nitrogen of the air is of no more avail to the plant than to the animal; the plant must obtain it from other sources, which usually found in decayipg vegetable and animal matter, particularly the latter. This is accomplished by the of manures which contain decomposing animal matter, or fertilizers containing ammonia or nitrates. The ammonia for this purpose is obtained as by-product in making gas from coal, or is applied in the form of guano. Tn either case the origin of the ammonia has been organic life. If nitrates are employed, such as hitter and saltpeter, which are found in great quantities in some parts of the world, it is probable that they have resulted from the oxidation of ammonia, which in turn is the product of putrefying animal and vegeta- ble matter. So seldom is ammonia nitric acid found under conditions that lead us to doubt of their organic origin that it would seem almost as if plants and animals were quite independent of the eatmosphericnitroge We may say that there are two totally distinct stores of nitrogen,- the one existing free, the other in combination; the latter travelling around 8 closed circle from the soil to the plant, thence to the animal from the animal out into the atmosphere, not in free state but as ammonia to be carried back to earth with the next gentle rain, or to be oxidized and dissolved as nitrate, and finally to reach the plant in it's second cycle.
 The problem of how the first plant obtain. ed it's nitrogen, and whether nitrogen is be- ing slowly removed from the atmosphere to be stored up in compounds, is not easily solved. Oxygen and nitrogen will combine under the influence of an electric spark After thunder shower, nitric acid has been detected in the air. Possibly some nitrogen is thus rendered available for plant life, and slowly but surely the great store of nitrogen is being drawn upon, and insensibly dimin- ished That it will ever be consumed seems unlikely, for plant life will have ceased upon the earth, for the want of carbonic acid, be- fore the supply of nitrogen has perceptibly diminished