8 OZONE AND ANTOZONE. PAET i. 



hot tube, it comes out pure oxygen. According to the 

 experiments of Messrs. Tait and Andrews, oxygen gas 

 loses six eighths of its volume, and becomes four 

 times more dense by the change ; it contracts more 

 readily with obscure electricity than with the spark. 

 The experiments of Professor Tyndall on the absorption 

 of radiant heat by gases give reason to believe that 

 ozone is produced by the packing of the atoms of ele- 

 mentary oxygen into oscillating groups, and that heat- 

 ing dissolves the bond of union and restores the ozone 

 to the form of oxygen. Ozone chiefly exists in air that 

 has passed over a great expanse of sea, and the quantity 

 is increased during the aurora, which alone might lead 

 to a surmise of that phenomenon being electric. 



The change of oxygen into ozone is not the only 

 instance of Allotropism, that is to say, the existence of 

 the same substance in two states differing from each 

 other in every respect, for ozone itself is allotropic. 

 Professor Schonbein has discovered that there are two 

 kinds of ozone standing to one another in the relation 

 of positively and negatively active oxygen ; namely ozone 

 and antozone, which neutralize each other into common 

 oxygen when brought into contact. In this respect 

 they are analogous to electricity, and, like electricity 

 too, one kind cannot be produced without a simul- 

 taneous development of the other. 



When a metal, such as silver for example, is oxidized 

 or rusts, it gives polarity to the atoms of oxygen in the 

 atmosphere and divides them into the opposite states of 

 ozone and antozone ; the ozone combines with the silver 

 and rusts or oxidizes it, at the same time that the ant- 

 ozone is dissolved in the moisture or aqueous vapour in 

 the air and forms peroxide of hydrogen. The oxidized 

 or rusted silver, as well as every other oxidized substance, 

 is an ozonide, while the peroxide of hydrogen is an ant- 

 ozonide. 



