AZONE AND ELECTRICITY. 217 



Now, this ozone, or this peculiar oxygen, always exists 

 in the air we breathe ; but its quantity is subject to great 

 and rapid variations. It is found that when electrical 

 intensity is high the quantity of this principle is great ; 

 when the electrical intensity is low, as in the cholera 

 years, the proportion of ozone is relatively low. 



This remarkable chemical agent possesses the power 

 of instantly combining with organic matter, of re- 

 moving with singular rapidity all noxious odours ; and 

 it would appear to be the most active of all known 

 disinfectants. 



May we not infer from the facts stated that the pes- 

 tilence we dread is the result of organic poison, which 

 from a deficiency of ozone, its natural antidote, exerts 

 its baneful influences on humanity. This deficiency is 

 due to alterations in the electrical character of the air, 

 possibly dependent upon phenomena taking place in the 

 sun itself, or it may be still more directly influenced by 

 variations in the character of solar light, which we have 

 not yet detected, by which the conditions of the electric 

 power are determined. 



This may be a line along which it is fair to push en- 

 quiry. But such an enquiry must be made in all the 

 purity of the highest inductive philosophy, and specu- 

 lation must be held firmly in the controlling chains of 

 experiment and observation. In the truths, however, 

 which are known to us, there is so much harmony and 

 consistence that even the melancholy theme links itself 

 a tragedy with the Poetry of Science. 



It has been thought, and much satisfactory evidence 

 has been brought forward to support the idea, that the 

 earth's magnetism is due to currents of electricity 

 circulating around the globe -, as a great natural current 

 from east to west that, indeed, it has an unvarying 

 reference to the motion of the earth in relation to the sun.* 



* Adopting, to a certain extent, this view, Faraday, in his 

 Electrical Nomenclature, proposed for the word pole to substitute 



