258 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



agent employed to convert all these deleterious 

 exhalations which the air receives, into" innocu- 

 ous matter. An atmosphere artificially charged 

 with ozone, immediately deprives the most 

 putrid solid or fluid bodies of all disagreeable 

 smell, and sulphuretted hydrogen is instantly de- 

 composed by it . . . 



" It has been proved that the electrical in- 

 tensity of the atmosphere has, during the year 

 (1849), been diminished in a remarkable manner. 

 As this is the great cause, ever active in pro- 

 ducing ozone, we might, a priori, infer a rela- 

 tively diminished quantity of this chemical 

 agent; and experiment has proved, that during 

 the last three months (June, July, and August, 

 1849), an appreciable quantity of ozone nould 

 not be detected by the ordinary methods, in the 

 air of London . . . Certain it is, that we have 

 for several months had to endure an atmosphere 

 of low electrical intensity, deficient in ozone, 

 an agent which would remove or alter pesti- 

 lential miasma. Vegetation has exhibited, and 

 is exhibiting, peculiar abnormal indications de- 

 pendent upon solar influences, of which we are 

 absolutely ignorant; consequently, the atmo- 

 sphere has been receiving an excess of organic 

 poison from the thousand and one sources which 

 the congregation of masses of men in towns gives 

 rise to, and has remained unchanged, to do its 

 work of destruction upon humanity. . . . 



