Chemistry. sy, 109 
The experiments of Fellenberg, it will be seen, do not really mili- 
tate against the existence of ozone ; they have only shown that in the 
ordinary processes by which ozone is generated, nitric acid is also pro- 
duced, and the similarity between the reactions of air mixed with a 
little nitric oxide, (by which hypo-nitric acid is generated oan ozonized 
air, is readily explained by the researches of Schénbein. 
In explanation of the production of nitric acid and ozone by the 
slave oxydation of phosphorus, we may suppose that nitrous or hypo- 
nitric acid is generated in the manner before suggested, which, by the 
action of aqueous vapor in the atmosphere, is converted into nitric acid, 
and the hypothetical peroxide of azote and hydrogen. 
_ Although ozone produced by chemical means is probably always as- 
sociated with nitric oxide, yet we cannot avoid the conclusion, appa- 
rently overlooked by Schonbein, that the ozone generated under certain 
circumstances, by the agency of electricity, (as in the experiments of 
Marignac above mentioned,) must be independent of, and free from ni- 
tric oxide. This has the odor and all the other properties of ozone 
produced by chemical means, and it is difficult to suppose that there 
can be two compounds, one of which is HO? and the other NO?4-HO2, 
identical in all their properties, and we are hence led to conclude, that, 
although such a compound may exist in the mixture of hypo-nitric acid 
and water, it does not exist in the ozonized air, whether this impregna- 
tion is effected by the action of ae teat or by agitation with the 
acid solution in question. 
- MM. Marignac and de la Rive* have recently obtained some results 
that seem to prove that water is not essential! to the production of ozone. 
They find that if a series of electrical sparks are passed through oxy- 
gen, however carefully dried, ozone is formed, and they suggest that 
ozone may be nothing more than oxygen, to which “‘a peculiar state of 
chemical activity” is given by the influence of the electric current. M. 
Schénbein, however, regards the formation of ozone as a certain indi- 
cation of the presence of water in the gas, but in quantities so minute 
as to escape the action of the ordinary hygrometive substances. The 
gentlemen above quoted however, find that the oxygen evolved from 
very pure chlorate of potassa previously fused, gave ozone, when expo- 
sed to'the action of the electric spark, as abundantly and rapidly as 
moist oxygen. 
M: Schénbein’s hyputhesiay iatiianaity: rests on the assumption 
that the gas obtained as above and apparently perfectly dry, still con- 
tains water. The suggestion that it is modified oxygen, is one of great 
interest, and derives some weight from the recently observed facts re- 
* Archives de I’Electricité, No. 18, Tome v. 1845, 
