Dr. Schoubem on the various Cunditions of Oxygen. 27 



ago I found out that ozonized oxygen transforms ammonia into 

 the nitrate of that base. Last year I ascertained that inactive 

 oxygen, on being put in contact with platinum or copper, acquires 

 the power of oxidizing, even at the common temperature, the 

 elements of ammonia into nitrous acid and water, nitrite of am- 

 monia being formed. Now 1 have discovered that HO^, Mn^ 0' 

 (permanganic acid), or the salts of that acid, for instance per- 

 manganate of potash, on being mixed with aqueous ammonia, 

 produce nitrites. A singular fact is*, that free ozonized oxygen 

 alone seems to be capable of oxidizing the nitrogen of ammonia 

 into nitric acid, whilst tlie ozonized oxygen of oxy-compounds, 

 or the oxygen rendered active by the influence of copper or 

 j)latinum, produces nitrous acid. Are we to infer from these 

 facts that the formation of a nitrite is the first stage of nitrifica- 

 tion ? One gambol more on my hobby-horse and I shall descend 

 from the animal. I have of late succeeded in ozonizing the oil of 

 turpentine so strongly, that one equivalent of that essence is as- 

 sociated to an equivalent of oxygen, and you may easily imagine 

 the great oxidizing power of the oil. By shaking it with peroxide 

 of lead it becomes deozonized, PbO^ being reduced to PbO, a 

 fact which, according to the statements above made, is a matter 

 of course. 



I must add a remark or two on my peroxide test-paper. I 

 prepare it by drenching strips of thin filtering-paper with a 

 solution of PbO^, and that solution is produced by shaking 

 together (for about fifteen minutes or so) two volumes of strongly 

 ozonized oil of turpentine and one volume of extractum Saturni 

 (subacetate of lead). On filtering the mixture I get a trans- 

 parent liquid, coloured like port wine, which in fact is oil 

 of turpentine holding some peroxide and oxide of lead dissolved. 

 Upon the filter remains a yellow substance, a mixture of PbO'^ 

 and PbO. Within twenty-four hours a similar mixture is de- 

 posited from the coloured essence. It is a remarkable fact 

 that the test-paper is rapidly bleached in strongly insolated 

 atmospheric air, as you will see from a strip sent, which in a 

 bright sun was completely bleached within an hour's time. For 

 that reason my tcst-pa])er must bi; kept in the dark. 

 1 am, my dear Friend, 



Yours most faithfully, 



C. F. ScniJNbiii.v. 



