60 LETTEES OF BEEZELIUS 



put into your large glass flask, as well as phosphorus, 

 a flat vessel containing an amalgam of silver, lead, 

 zinc or tin, it seems to me that the metal dissolved in 

 the mercury would necessarily combine with ozone 

 to form a metallic ozonide, and the compound could 

 thus be prepared without the disturbing influence of 

 water, particularly if the metal chosen were one 

 which was not attacked by the vapours of phos- 

 phorous acid. After several weeks or a few months 

 an arrangement of this kind might give a sufficient 

 quantity of the substance for investigation. 



Your theoretical ideas are extremely simple and 

 for that reason one would be glad to believe in them. 

 On the other hand they offer great difficulties. What 

 are the oxidation products of nitrogen if J? = OzH ? 

 Are they OzH + 1, 2, 3 and 5 atoms of oxygen ? In 

 that case OzH shows an inexplicable difference in 

 character from the ordinary substances which form 

 salts, for it ought to be a strong hydracid. Again 

 phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony form compounds 

 analogous in some degree to ammonia; but all of 

 them contain three equivalents of hydrogen, while 

 ammonia would have to be written OzH 4 . 



On the other hand if nitric oxide, nitric acid, etc., 

 are to be Oz, 6z the theory does not accord with the 

 composition of these bodies, and particularly not with 

 their densities, the experimental values of which 

 agree so exactly with those calculated from their 

 composition. If a certain quantity of hydrogen gas 

 were driven out of the compound, in the combination 

 of nitrogen with oxygen, the gaseous product so formed 



