18 Meissner’s Researches on Oxygen, Ozone, and Antozone. 
May not the exterior secondary rings, thrown off b 
planets, have been at too great a distance to form stable satellites: ? 
and in such case would not the detached portions of matter re- 
volve round the sun in very. eccentric orbits, the degree of ec- 
centricity depending on the direction of their motion at the 
epochs of separation from the secondary system? If so, the 
approximate coincidence between ine _ peri riods of planets and 
comets would follow as a consequen 
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, i 29, 1864. 
Art. IL—Abstract of Prof. Meissner’s Researches on Oxygen, 
Ozone, and Antozone; by 8S. W. JOHNSON 
[Concluded from vol. xxxvii, p. 335.] 
Tue 2d Section, entitled The Polarization of Oxygen in the Act 
of Combustion, opens with an examination of the products of the 
slow oxydation o phosphorus. The white fumes which are al- 
moist air. He once er aeioy d them to consist merely of shee t 
phorous acid, formed by the anes of vapor of phosphorus with =~ 
oxygen. Afterward, he noticed that they do not readily dis- 
appear upon agitating with water, and since dry PO, absorbs 
water with great avidity, he assumed in the fumes the existence 
of an insoluble PO,, isomeric with the ordinary acid. William- 
son thought the cloud to consist of PO ;, the last result of the 
action of ozone on vapor of phosphorus. Osann, at first, denied 
the existence of any of the oxyds of phosphorus in the fumes 
on account of the permanence of the latter, as they may be 
assed through water, potassa lye, oil of vitriol, nitric acid, and 
solutions of nitrate of silver, arsenious acid, protosulphate of 
iron, and iodid of potassium, without pereeptible change. Find- 
ing, however, evidence of the presence of PO, in ‘the water 
over which the cloud had been allowed to ae until it disap- 
* The perturbation of such Bagi of nebulous matter was the “ general cause 
to which the writer referred in his paper on the mean «distances of the riodic 
, Tei ore the ibaa Association in 1858. Nearly the same idea was 
mrgrees in a letter dated May, 1863, by pag "lag Ab yn Esq., of Perry City, 
N. Y. At that time, Mr. T. knew nothing of above-mentio pet paper on the 
subject, so that the A site esis was with -_ etry original. emarks : 
a, ~ eset id f the ring might detach small portions that woud not unite 
a iat e eccentricity wo non pend on the angle of projection. 
Bes ch only vol. ii, p. 160, Art. 18, wap (58) 
“This being true, the mean distances of should coincide ap eer 
nately with the mean distances of the planets. I think we should look 
brn: ec to have the longer periods of revolution, because 
biases ote nfo eaene ee plement Sue, 
