Antozone and Peroxide of Hydrogen. 409 



points, according to Schonbein, antozone and ozone were nearly 

 alike. 



Perplexing as the subject was rendered by the numerous, and, 

 not unfrequently, the contradictory statements of Schonbein, it 

 was enveloped in a far more disheartening nebulosity, and, it is 

 hardly exaggeration to say, buried beneath a dense fog, raised 

 around it by the indefatigable life-long labors of Meissner. 

 "Witness the following samples of Meissner 's modes of conceiv- 

 ing and stating the nature of the problems under study, and 

 ask yourselves whether, as he stated them, the problems were 

 not too vague to admit of precise thinking or of crucial experi- 

 mentation. Antozone, says Meissner, is identical with the gas 

 which is set free by the action of sulphuric acid upon peroxide 

 of barium, except in the two respects, that unlike this gas it 

 does not decompose iodide of potassium, and it does not smell 

 (in other words, it is identical with a gas, from which it differs 

 in two essential characters). But (note how the accompanying 

 qualification tends to clarify our ideas) this gas likewise loses 

 its smell, clouds at the same time being formed on coming into 

 contact with moist air. 



According to Meissner, ozone could not oxidize nitrogen, and 

 probably antozone alone could not do so either, but both together 

 could bring it about, in case moisture were present and other 

 oxidizable bodies were absent. As the peculiarly distinguishing 

 characteristic of ozone, Meissner rated its power of forming 

 clouds in contact with water. When the water was abstracted 

 from the clouds, by contact with dessicating bodies, the dried 

 antozone could form ozone again by transmission through water. 



Finally, in opposition to Schonbein, Meissner held that anto- 

 zone was not absorbed or acted upon by potassium iodide, so that 

 if a mixture of ozone and antozone is passed through a solution 

 of iodide of potassium, the ozone is absorbed, while the antozone 

 escapes and passes on free. 



I have endeavored to present above the views entertained by 

 Schonbein, Meissner, and others, concerning antozone, as lucidly 

 as the contradictory and oftentimes vague statements made con- 

 cerning it would allow, and have brought its history down to 

 the time of the publication by von Babo of the memoir before 

 alluded to (1863), in which the weakness of the experimental 



