73 KEPORT— 1869. 



bromine into the little tube which is placed inside the cylinder previously to the 

 experiment, and which is broken before it is submitted to solar action, after 

 a few seconds the brownish colour of the bromine disappears and hydrobromic 

 acid is formed, smoking abundantly on contact with atmospheric air. 



I could increase stUl further the list of bodies submitted to this interesting 

 means of investigation and experiment. I shaU limit myseK to a summary of 

 the theoretical considerations which these facts have impressed on my mind. 

 We know that the calorific, luminous, and chemical rays are placed side by 

 side and are even intermingled in the solar spectrum, with undulatory lengths 

 successively decreasing. 



Now aU chemical bodies may be classed in two series : the first (having sul- 

 phurous acid for prototype) comprises all bodies formed under the action of 

 calorific rays ; the second (having hydrochloric acid for prototj'pe) comprises 

 aU bodies formed by the chemical rays. 



The following are the conclusions which the foregoing facts induce me to 

 admit : — 



If a body is formed and maintained under certain oscillatory conditions, 

 the peculiar oscillations of the atoms Avhich constitute its molecules must 

 differ from those of the medium in which the body has been produced. But 

 if this body is transferred into another medium in which it meets with oscil- 

 lations isochronous to those of its own atoms, these oscillations increase, and 

 the vis viva which the atoms acqviire may become so great as to drive the 

 atoms beyond the radius of their sphere of action ; the atomic edifice is de- 

 molished ; and as the constitutive atoms preserve, nevertheless, their peculiar 

 affinities, they form a now edifice adapted to the oscillatory conditions in 

 which they are now situated. Thus they escape the shocks of the generating 

 medium, by ceasing to vibrate synchronously with it, exactly as an elastic 

 sonorous body docs not vibrate and gives no sound when the aerial vibrations 

 which strike it are not synchronous with those which it is capable of re- 

 producing. But if the new edifice is again submitted to the action of other 

 syTichronous rays it is again demolished. 



Most curious evolutions ! They seem to ask of the chemist : — 



1°. Under what peculiar cii'cumstances and influences are bodies formed? 



2". Under what vibrations precisely do their atoms oscUlate ? 



3°. Finally, under the action of what other vibrations may the molecular 

 edifice be destroyed ? 



Ozone, and all bodies capable of uniting themselves with other bodies, 

 would be simply molecules whose atoms are possessed of a vis viva sufficient 

 to animate and set in motion the atoms of the other bodies with which 

 they unite themselves. 



Will a simple hochj, even, always remain such to us, if it become possible 

 to discover what oscillations have assembled the atoms of its constitutive 

 molecule, and what can destroy it ? 



Such is the question which future lovers of nature and science may be one 

 day enabled to solve. 



One word more, upon a probable conjecture. 



I have often seen that, under some circumstances not yet determined by me, 

 the concentrated action of solar light is not without eff"ect upon atmospheric air. 

 In such case an appreciable whitish-blue colour is produced ; might it not, 

 then, be presumed that the fine whitish-blue vapour which in Alpine 

 valleys bathes the foot of a mountain is produced by the action of a 

 brightly luminous sky under favourable and unknown circumstances of heat, 

 light, and aqueous vapour ? 



