338 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



On operating in like manner with ordinary oxygen (that is, before 

 the gas has undergone the obscure electrification), nothing similar 

 is observed. Even after twenty-four hours of contact the alcohol 

 remained neutral, inodorous, and without action upon either the salt 

 of silver or chromic acid. 



Ether, in the same circumstances, undergoes from concentrated 

 ozone an analogous and still more rapid oxidation, attended by the 

 production of oxygenated water. 



If we compare these effects of oxidation with the similar effects 

 upon alcohol of contact with oxidizing bodies such as chromic acid, 

 a mixture of sulphuric acid and bichromate of potass, &c., one cannot 

 but recognize the profound analogy which seems to exist between 

 free ozone and oxygen as it exists in its combinations ; indeed it was 

 this very analogy which led me long ago to suppose that ozone might 

 be only the primitive state of oxygen. 



However this may be, these experiments demonstrate that con- 

 centrated ozone (which can now be easily produced with my 

 ozonizing tubes) is an oxidizing agent at the same time simple and 

 energetic, the employment of which may be useful in researches of 

 organic chemistry. 



When we endeavour to calculate the real quantity of ozone con- 

 tained in odoriferous oxygen from the products of the oxidation of 

 alcohol, and compare the result Vv^ith that furnished by the oxidation 

 of either iodide of potassium or metallic silver, the numbers arrived 

 at differ remarkably from one another, and silver gives the smallest 

 product. Hence at present we ought not to accept without reserve 

 the numbers expressing that quantity of ozone. 



In concluding I cannot too strongly advise chemists who make 

 use of concentrated ozone to do so with the utmost caution ; breathed, 

 even in very small quantity, it suddenly occasions inflammation of 

 the mucous membranes, which I have known to bring on spitting 

 of blood. — Comptes Rendus de VAcad. des Sciences, July 15, 1872, 

 pp. 142, 143. , 



ON SOME EFFECTS OP SLOW ACTIONS^ PRODUCED IN THE COURSE 

 OF A CERTAIN NUMBER OF YEARS. BY M. BECQUEREL. 



I have already called the attention of the Academy to the effects 

 which constitute the subject of this memoir ; but I have thought it 

 necessary to resume the question in order to develope it further, 

 and then to show the influence of time in the effects produced. 



I used, in these researches, either a cracked tube filled with a 

 metallic solution and dipping in an alkaline solution in which a 

 metallic oxide was dissolved, or a porous diaphragm of unglazed por- 

 celain instead of the tube, or a glass vessel hermetically sealed, con- 

 taining an acid or alkaline solution in which was immersed a mineral 

 substance. 



With an electrocapillary apparatus, a solution of gold and another 

 of plumbate of potash gave, in the space of two years, on the one 

 hand minium in the crystallized condition, similar to that obtained 

 in the dry way, and, on the other, metaUic gold. 



