SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS OF CARLSRUHE. 359 



zer's reagent is without action on the pyroxyline or gun-cotton, as well 

 as on collodion. 



J. Nickles, Professor of the Faculty of Sciences at Nancy. — On re- 

 searches respecting fluorine, its presence in sulphuric acid, in blood, 

 bones, teeth, in mineral and ordinary waters, the sources from which 

 the animal organism derives it, and on the causes of error which infect 

 the old process, with the means of avoiding those errors, &c. Memoirs 

 of the Academy of Stanislas, 185*7, p. 77; Comptes rendus de V Acad- 

 emic des Sciences^ T. XLV, p. 331 ; Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie, 

 T. XXIV, p. 113. 



An interesting discussion took place in reference to this paper in 

 which several chemists, particularly MM. Liebig, Erdmarm, and 

 Fritzsche of St. Petersburg, bore a part. 



De Babo, Professor at the University of Fribourg, in Breisgau. — 

 Apparatus for preparing ozone. This apparatus, by which ozone is 

 obtained through the combustion of phosphorus, accomplishes the 

 separation of the gas from the phosphorus acid with which it is usually 

 contaminated. This result is obtained by causing the fluid to pass 

 into a solution of chromic acid, which acid does not restrict itself to 

 the oxydation of the phosphorus acid, but, as M. Baumert, a pupil of 

 M. Bunsen, had already perceived, it also enriches the ozone, since 

 after the washing the ozone is found to be surprisingly increased, ob- 

 viously because the oxydation of the phosphorus ackl is itself a cause 

 of ozonization. 



M. De Babo has succeeded in desiccating ozone to the extent of ob- 

 taining it in an anhydrous condition, whence it follows that ozone, 

 or at least this particular species of ozone, cannot be confounded with 

 the hydrogenized ozone discovered by M. Baumert. 



MM. Bunsen and Magnus, who gave their views on this occasion, 

 are of opinion that it is necessary to recognize two species of ozone, 

 the one to be regarded as allotropic oxygen, the other as a hydrogenous 

 combination. We shall see presently that this obscure question of the 

 nature of ozone received considerable elucidation at one of the subse- 

 quent sittings. 



Erdmann, Professor at the University of Leipzig. — The name of M. 

 Erdraann is of interest to us^ not only account of the honorable labors 

 which it signalizes, but because the savant who bears it was also the 

 first master of the unfortunate Gerhardt. It was he who had the 

 merit of presaging the future chemist, and of initiating in science the 

 eminent man who died so young, and who had opened to chemistry so 

 wide an horizon. It was into his own house at Leipzic that M. Erd- 

 mann received the young commercial traveler of Alsace, whom an irre- 

 sistible inclination allured to the science, though somewhat, it must be 

 confessed, to the detriment of those mercantile interests in which he 

 had been engaged.* 



The occasion might justly be deemed fortunate which led us to make 

 the personal acquaintance of the first master of our lamented friend, 

 and enabled us to obtain information on some of the obscurer incidents 



* See biographic notice of Gerhardt, Silliman's Journal of Sciences, Vol. XXIII, p. 102. 

 Author. 



