Chemistry and Physics. . 435 



4 



/ 



I 



! 



which this substance has when slowly oxydizing in the air, while 16 

 those, unacquainted with the odor of oxydizing phosphorus, the univer- 

 sally known odor of burning sulphur has been cited as an exemplifica- 

 tion. Hence, the often repeated allegation of a sulphurous smell being 

 consequent to the passage of lightning. A similar property was like- 

 wise observed in oxygen, which had been extricated from water by 

 electrolysis. I observed a like odor about twenty-five years ago, when 

 a large tube, used in the inflammation of explosive mixtures of hydro- 

 gen and atmospheric air, was burst by the process; as well as upon 

 other occasions, when similar burstings ensued, 



Schonbein, who has attained much celebrity as the inventor of gun 

 cotton, was the first to associate phenomena of the kind alluded to, under 

 one view ; and to show that the air which had acqiiired the odorifercus 

 property in question, however obtained, had certain chemical proper- 

 ties \n common. These properties were analogous to those displayed 

 by chlorine, bromine, iodine, fluorine, and cyanogen, which constitute 

 the halogen class of Berzelius; and hence the distinguished investiga- 

 tor conceived that they might be due to some body of that class, which 

 had escaped detection. 



To this supposed body he gave the name of '' Ozone," from Greek 

 words which signify the production of odor* 



As cyanogen is known to consist of two atoms of carbon and one of 

 cyanogen, it would not, a priori^ be unreasonable that another body 



should be formed deserving to be ranked in the same class. 



Latterly, Schonbein has advanced the idea that ozonification may be 

 owing to a combination consisting of peroxyd of hydrogen and bioxyd 

 of nitrogen, or in other words, of oxygenated water and nitric oxyd. 

 But this inference seems to have been invalidated by an experiment 

 made by de la Rive and Marignac. These distinguished chemists 

 ozonized oxygen by passing electric sparks through the gas, while ex- 

 clusively occupying a tube in which it had been evolved from chlorate 

 of polassa previously fused, and consequently devoid of moisture. 



Hence Berzelius, and other distinguished chemists, deemed it reason- 

 able to ascribe the phenomena to a peculiar state of oxygen. 



I It had long been known that certain elements were capable of very 



different slates; as for instance, carbon in the forms of tinder, char- 

 coal, anthracite, plumbago, and the diamond. 



{ According to Prof. Draper, chlorine after exposure to the solar rays, 



becomes more capable of combining with hydrogen under a feeble 



I illumination. 



This diversity is displayed in many instances by bodies in what has 

 teen called their nascent state, which is assumed just as they escape 

 from combination. Under these circumstances, they will combine with 

 elements for which, usually, they display no afRnity, Thus nitrogen, 

 as it exists in the atmosphere, shows no affinity either for carbon or 

 hydrogen, yet when nascent, forms with hydrogen, ammonia, with car- 

 bon, cyanogen. On this account I have concurred in opinion with 

 Berzelius, that the phenomena ascribed to ozone may be caused by 



^•^ygen in a peculiar state. 



It is requisite to mention, that among the tests of the presence of 

 ozonized air, the mixture of starch paste with a solution of iodid of 



