68 LETTEES OF BEEZELIUS 



remains the further step of producing an unmistak- 

 able compound of this body with some other in such 

 quantity as to make it possible to study its properties 

 accurately. If you lead a current of air first through 

 ether and then through platinum sponge this can 

 readily be effected by means of an aspirator, and 

 continued for weeks together you might collect a 

 considerable quantity of the products of combustion ; 

 they would be little else than water, carbonic acid 

 and ozone. If, as you state, the liquid dissolves 

 mercury, forming a soluble salt, you might condense 

 it over mercury and thus obtain a quantity of the 

 mercury salt, whose properties could then be 

 investigated. 



I did not get your detailed paper, but I am 

 acquainted with it from the French translation in 

 de la Eive's Archive de I' filectriciU. 1 I candidly 

 confess that I am not quite satisfied with the experi- 

 mental part of it ; in the first place the preparation 

 of the potassium salt is tremendously laborious, and 

 in the next place the reactions which you have 

 performed with the new salt are not carried out 

 on correct principles. For you assert that all 

 acids evolve from it an odour of ozone, the acid 

 uniting with the potassium. This is much as 

 though sulphuric acid were to produce a smell of 

 chlorine with common salt. You should have tried 

 it with chlorine or bromine water in order to set 

 ozone free. If, however, which I do not doubt, your 

 assertion be correct, the odour must be due to hydro- 

 5 V Electricity vol. iv. (1844) p. 333. 



