M. Schonbein on Ozone and Ozonic Actions in Mushrooms. 137 



diamagnetic constituents, is capable of satisfactory explana- 

 tion. 



Finally, inasmuch as the set of the mass in the magnetic field 

 depends upon the difference of its excitement in different direc- 

 tions, it will follow that any circumstance which affects all 

 directions of a magnecrystallic mass in the same degree will not 

 disturb the differential action upon which its deportment de- 

 pends. This seems to me to be the explanation of the results 

 recently obtained by Mr. Faraday with such remarkable uni- 

 formity, namely, that, no matter what the medium may be in 

 which the magneciystallic body is immersed, whether air or 

 liquid, paramagnetic or diamagnetic, it requires, in all cases, the 

 same amount of force to turn it from the position which it takes 

 up in virtue of its structure. 



I have thus dwelt upon instances of magnecrystallic action 

 which have revealed themselves in actual practice, as affording 

 the best examples for the application of the knowledge which 

 the demonstration of the polarity of the diamagnetic force places 

 in our possession ; and I believe it has been shown that these 

 pha^nomena, which were in the highest degree paradoxical when 

 first announced, are deducible with as much ease and certainty 

 from the action of polar forces, as the precession of the equi- 

 noxes is from the force of gravitation. The whole domain of 

 magnecrystallic action is thus transferred from a region of 

 mechanical enigmas to one in which our knowledge is as clear 

 and sure as it is regarding the most elementary phsenomena of 

 magnetic action. 



Royal Institution, Dec. 1855. 



XVI. On Ozone and Ozonic Actions in Mushrooms. 



By M. SCHONBEIN*. 



My dear Faraday, 



'OU know that I hold oxygen, both in its free and bound 

 state, to be capable of existing in two allotropic modi- 

 fications, — in the ozonic or active, and the ordinary or inactive 

 condition. All the oxy-compounds yielding common oxygen at a 

 raised temperature I consider to contain ozonized oxygen ; and I 

 am further inclined to believe that the disengagement of common 

 oxygen from those compounds dejiends upon the transforma- 

 tion of the ozonized oxygen into the inactive one, or, to de- 

 note that allotropic change, of into 0. Now a general fact is 

 this : that the oxygen thus set free always contains traces of O 



* Communicated by Professor Faraday. 

 Phil, Mag, S. 4. Vol. 11. No. 70. Feb. 1856. L 



Y' 



