186 NOTICE OF CHRISTIAN FEEDERIC SCnOENBEIN, 



material viniverse. He worked with ardor and an indefatigable perseverance, 

 and all the time he could command was employed in his experiments; even the 

 short wintry days found him at early morn in his laboratory. When astonish- 

 ment was expressed that one of his advanced age should be so eager in the pur- 

 suit of science, he was wont to say, with a smile, that he knew " there remained 

 for him but little time in which to work, and that there was still much flax upon 

 his distaftV 



He preserved to the end all the freshness of his faculties as well as the juvenile 

 enthusiasm with which from the first he had made known his discoveries to his 

 colleagues and to the scientific world. 



Among the works of Schoenbein we may first mention those Avhich relate to 

 subjects which are neither entirely physical nor entirely chemical, but which 

 rather appertain to both, such as his researches upon the passivity of iron and 

 of other metals ; the changes of color of bodies under the influence of temperature ; 

 the chemical action of luminous rays, and finally the theory of voltaic electricity. 

 In this latter domain he has thrown much light upon the Avell-lvuown controversy 

 relative to the theory of contact and chemical action ; in studying with impar- 

 tialit}' the two opposite opinions, and in demonstrating wherein they were fault}?" 

 He ascribes the origin of voltaic electricity to chemical action, although he showed 

 a positive difference between the electricity developed in the open current of the 

 battery and that which produces the cuirent and the chemical decomposition 

 which are manifested when the current is closed. 



His researches on the voltaic current date from 1836 to 1840 ; since that epoch 

 his views relative to the source of the voltaic current have become gradually 

 adopted by physicists in general. In 1839, Avhile in England at the meeting of 

 the British Association, he made the personal acquaintance of the celebrated 

 English lawyer and physicist, Grove, who presented at the session a small voltaic 

 battery, of which the cells were constructed of the bowls of tobacco pipes ; this 

 was the first exhibition of the celebrated constant battery which bears the name 

 of its inventor. As Schoenbein had been engaged on a similar investigation, 

 Tve soon see the two phj'sicists pursuing the same object. They planned one of 

 these batteries of large size, and thus produced an apparatus which, in proportion 

 to its dimensions, exhibited an unusual electro-motive force. This first large 

 constant battery is still preserved in the Museum of Physics at Basle, a souvenir of 

 Schoenbein and of Hcussler, a friend of science brought up among us, who bore 

 the expense of its construction and gave it to our academy. The possession of 

 this apparatus gave to Schoenbein a fresh incentive to resume with new energy 

 his researches upon the relations of electric and chemical forces. Thanks to this 

 battery it became possible to decompose water into its elements in greater quan- 

 tities than had ever before been done; it was during an experiment of this kind 

 that, in the autumn of 1 839, he perceived a peculiar odor from the oxygen obtained 

 by the decomposition of water similar to that produced when a large electrical 

 machine is in active operation, or when a discharge of lightning takes place 

 between a cloud and the earth. This odor he at first attributed to a new sub- 

 stance mixed in small quantities with the oxj-gen, and as this body ought to have 

 a special name, after consulting with his colleague, M. W. Kischer, he gave it 

 that of ozone. 



His first publication of the discovery of ozone excited but little attention in the 

 scientific world. But nowise disheartened by this, he continued his investigations 

 with a persistency only to be met with among those who are thoroughly possessed 

 with a subject. He pursued during 29 years, or what may be considered the 

 active life of a man, the same end, the study of the chemical properties of oxygen ; 

 a labor which, though it might appear to lead to no valuable results, is really 

 connected with the properties of one of the most important elements of our globe. 



In consequence of his own researches and those of other phj^sicists, Schoenbein 

 was soon forced to renounce the idea that ozone was an elemeutaiy substance, and 



