When measuring the boiling point of magnesium, Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville and Henri Caron identified that molten magnesium they distilled covered itself by "small colorless and transparent needles which are destroyed fairly quickly by transforming into ammonia and magnesia".In their 1857 publication the chemists interpreted it as a likely nitride similar to those discovered by Friedrich Wöhler and Heinrich Rose.[2] It was indeed confirmed in 1862 when Friedrich Briegleb and Johann Georg Anton Geuther synthesized the compound on purpose and first studied it.At high pressures, the stability and formation of new nitrogen-rich nitrides (N/Mg ratio equal or greater to one) were suggested and later discovered.Out of desperation and curiosity (he called it the "make the maximum number of mistakes" approach[9]), he added some magnesium wire to the hexagonal boron nitride and gave it the same pressure and heat treatment.