Prof. Clausius on the Nature of Ozone. 45 



clearly disposed to regard his symbols as mere expressions of 

 equivalent quantities, not of atomic weights. But inasmuch as 

 a writer* in this country has recently advocated the use of 

 Gerhardt's equivalents in what I conceive to be their incorrect 

 sense, it may be worth while to state the objections. It is evi- 

 dent that the iron in ferric salts is in a different state from the 

 iron in ferrous salts, and that we may call the former ferricum, 

 and the latter ferrosum ; but what I maintain is, that the atom 

 of ferricum, the smallest indivisible proportion of ferricum that 

 can enter into a combination, is twice as heavy as the atom of 

 ferrosum, and not two-thirds as heavy. Similarly, the smallest 

 proportion of platinicum that can enter into a combination has 

 the same weight, and not one-half the weight of an atom of plati- 

 nosum. By reducing all chlorides and oxides to protochlorides 

 and protoxides, we ignore the following facts : — 



1. That there is a great distinction in properties between 

 protosalts and sesquisalts, or bisalts. Aluminium, for instance, 

 forms but one set of salts ; these might very well be considered 

 as protosalts, but they are not so considered, simply because their 

 properties are altogether different from those of protosalts. 



2. That the analogy which binds bismuth to antimony, to 

 arsenic, to phosphorus, and finally to nitrogen, must forbid the 

 triscction of the atomic weights of bismuth and antimony, unless 

 accompanied by a trisection of those of phosphorus and nitrogen. 



3. That in well-defined molecules we rarely find so small a 

 quantity of platinicum, or of ferricum, as corresponds with Ger- 

 hardt's atomic weights, but twice the former, and three times 

 the latter quantity, thus : — 



Hydrochlorate of platinamine . . . H CI . NH pt- 

 Hydrochlorate of diplatinamine . . H CI . N^ H"* pt^. 

 Ammonio-chloride of platinum . . NH'^Cl .pt^CF. 



Iron-ahim fe3K(S0'')2. 



]\Iagnetic oxide of iron fe^ Fe 0^. 



4. That twice pt, aiad three times fe, cr, al, &c., are usually 

 the smallest quantities of pt and fe, &c. that can result from, or 

 effect, those reactions in which the reacting quantities are deter- 

 mined by the amount of some other element concerned, thus : — • 



K^O . Cr2 03 -I- 8HC1 = 2KCH- 3cr CI -f 4H20 -F 3C1. 



VI. On the Nature of Ozone. By R. CLAUSiusf. 



IN the January Number of the Philosophical Magazine (p. 24), 

 there is a communication by Schcinbein, in which the 

 discoverer of ozone describes a new property of this remarkable 

 * GriiKu's liadical Theory in Chemistry. 

 t Trauislatcd by Dr, Y, Guthrie, fVoia Poggendorfif's Annalen for May. 



