ON OZONE. 99 
that oxidizing agent? My experiments have shown that during the electri- 
cal discharges which we effect by artificial means within atmospheric air, 
ozone makes its appearance, and from that fact we are allowed, I think, to 
draw the inference that ozone is also produced as often as the electrical equi- 
librium of the atmosphere suffers disturbance from natural causes. Now 
electrical discharges of that description continually taking place in that at- 
. mosphere, it follows that the odoriferous principle is continually formed there. 
This conclusion, taken together with the before-mentioned fact, that iodide 
of potassium is changed by ozone exactly in the same way as it is by atmo- 
spheric air, renders it highly probable, if not altogether certain, that the pe- 
euliar oxidizing agent contained in our atmosphere is nothing but ozone 
produced by atmospheric electricity. Starting from that supposition, it is 
very easy to see why the freely circulating air only acts upon the iodide, and 
why stagnant or inclosed air does not. The quantity of ozone contained in 
a small volume of air must be exceedingly minute, and large quantities of air 
are therefore required to pass over a particle of iodide in order to cause a 
perceptible elimination of iodine. 
If ozone is to be considered as a constituent part of our atmosphere, and 
it be a well-ascertained fact that ozone is capable of oxidizing a great 
number of substances at the common temperature, we can hardly help ascri- 
bing to that subtle agent many slow oxidations which are effected in the 
atmosphere. As electrical discharges take place not only during a thunder- 
storm, but daily and hourly, and as those discharges give rise to the produc- 
tion of ozone, that principle would by degrees accumulate to an alarming 
amount, and so as to endanger animal life, if nature had not taken care to 
remove it almost as quickly as it is formed. That removal is principally 
effected by the large quantities of organic matter which cover the surface of 
the earth, and which are suspended in the waters of the ocean. 
Not one single elementary body, and very few oxidizable compounds, com- 
bine at the common temperature with free oxygen; oxidizable substances must 
be more or less heated in order to unite with that element. And it isa 
well-known fact, that oxygen, being in certain states of combination, is able 
to combine at the common temperature with a great variety of substances. 
Such being the case, we must be rather surprised at the facility with which 
organic substances, placed in contact with the atmosphere, are decomposed 
and transformed into carbonic acid and water, and that circumstance must 
strike us still more if we consider that carbon and hydrogen require high 
temperatures to be united with free oxygen. On account of the facts men- 
tioned, it is rather difficult to admit that it is the gaseous oxygen of the at- 
mosphere which combines with the carbon and hydrogen of organic mat- 
- ters. According to the statements I have made, ozone has the power to de- 
stroy all vegetable colours, and is taken up by a variety of organic substances. 
I think there can be hardly any doubt that the reactions mentioned are due 
to the oxygen of ozone being thrown upon the oxidizable constituent parts of 
vegetable and animal matter, and it is therefore very likely that atmospheric 
_ ozone acts some part in the slow decomposition which organic substances 
_ undergo in the open air, and that atmospheric ozone has also something to 
_ do with the common bleaching process. I however do not mean to say that 
the mentioned oxidations are exclusively to be ascribed to that ozone which 
_ is produced by the agency of atmospheric electricity. 
_- We know that ozone may be produced in another than electrical manner, 
namely, by what the French call action de présence, or by the catalytic force 
_ of Berzelius. Phosphorus, in its action upon moist atmospheric air, exhibits 
the most interesting example of the kind, so that we may consider it as a 
H2 
