But even yet the food cycle is not complete.  Some of the processes of decomposition appear to cause a portion of the nitrogen to fly out of the circle at a tangent.  In the process of decomposition which is going on through the agency of micro-organisms, a considerable part of the nitrogen is dissipated into the air in the form of free nitrogen.  When a bit of meat decays, part of the meat is, indeed, converted into ammonia or other nitrogen compounds, but if the putrefaction is allowed to go on, in the end a considerable portion of it will be broken into still simpler forms, and the nitrogen will finally be dissipated into the air in the form of free nitrogen.  This dissipation of free nitrogen into the air is going on in the world wherever putrefaction takes place.  Wherever decomposition of nitrogen products occurs some free nitrogen is eliminated.  Now, this part of the nitrogen has passed beyond the reach of plants, for plants can not extract free nitrogen from the air.  In the diagram this is represented as a portion of the material which, through the agency of the decomposition bacteria, has been thrown out of the cycle at a tangent (Fig. 25 E).  It will, of course, be plain from this that the store of nitrogen food must be constantly diminishing.  The soil may have been originally supplied with a given quantity of nitrogen compound, but if the decomposition products are causing considerable quantities of this nitrogen to be dissipated in the air, it plainly follows that the total amount of nitrogen food upon which the animal and vegetable kingdoms can depend is becoming constantly reduced by such dissipation.

There are still other methods by which nitrogen is being lost from the food cycle.  First, we may notice that the ordinary processes of vegetation result in a gradual draining of the soil and a throwing of its nitrogen into the ocean.  The body of any animal or any plant that chances to fall into a brook or river is eventually carried to the sea, and the products of its decomposition pass into the ocean and are, of course, lost to the soil.  Now, while this gradual extraction of nitrogen from the soil by drainage is a slow one, it is nevertheless a sure one.  It is far more rapid in these years of civilized life than in former times, since the products of the soil are given to the city, and then are thrown into its sewage Our cities, then, with our present system of disposing of sewage, are draining from the soil the nitrogen compounds and throwing them away.

In yet another direction must it be noticed that our nitrogen compounds are being lost to plant life—­viz., by the use of various nitrogen compounds to form explosives.  Gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, in fact, nearly all the explosives that are used the world over for all sorts of purposes, are nitrogen compounds.  When they are exploded the nitrogen of the compound is dissipated into the air in the form of gas, much of it in the form of free nitrogen.  The basis