122 



Mr. C. Tomlinson on 



[Feb. 21, 



shaken, the only effect was to increase the quantity of the modified 

 salt, while the liquid portion remained supersaturated. With a northerly 

 or easterly wind the oil determined the sudden solidification of the salt 

 either at once, or on shaking the flask, with the usual rise in 

 temperature. 



During the last three or four months, however, the occasions have 

 been so rare on which the oils produced this last-named effect that, 

 had I not had sufficient confidence in my published results, I should 

 have been disposed to agree with other observers in the conclusion that 

 oils have no nuclear action on these solutions. But those rare occa- 

 sions (rare in consequence of the prevalence of southerly and westerly 

 winds) when the oils did act with effect, satisfied me that, whatever 

 the force may be which enables the oils to act, it is a true cause, 

 capable of being discovered by continuing the observations. 



The contradictory nature of the results will be understood from one 

 example. On the 18th of December the wind, which had long been 

 westerly and south-westerly, veered to the north-west, when I dropped 

 castor- oil into three flasks, placed in the open air, and the solutions 

 immediately solidified. To meet the objection that an oil that has been 

 exposed to the air always contains minute particles of sodic sulphate, 

 or of a salt isomeric therewith, I rinsed out a clean bottle with hot 

 water, filled it half-full of the same, and poured upon it a little castor- 

 oil. The cork, which had been kept in hot water, was then inserted, 

 and the phial was repeatedly shaken, so that if any nuclear salt had 

 been contained in the oil, it must have gone into solution, in which 

 state, as I have already shown,* it is not nuclear. When the phial was 

 cold, some of the washed oil was taken up with a pipette (previously 

 kept in water), and dropped into six flasks, when the solutions all 

 became solid. On the next day, and the day after, the wind was 

 westerly and south-westerly with a damp fog. The experiment was 

 repeated exactly as on the day before, but now the oil no longer pro- 

 duced solidification of the salt ; it only threw down a little seven-atom 

 salt when the flasks were shaken. 



In reviewing this long series of experiments, in connection also with the 

 singular activity of the drops of the solution exposed during the periods 

 of bright weather last summer, when the wind was often easterly, I was 

 led to suspect that ozone was the force I had so long been in search of. 

 Accordingly a few days ago, when a damp fog prevailed, and the oils, 

 &c, were singularly inert, I put a bit of scraped phosphorus into a 

 wet tube, and then poured in some oil of cajuput. In the course 

 of a few hours the oil became as singularly active as it had before 

 been inert. The solutions immediately became solid as soon as a drop 

 of the phosphorised oil touched the surface, or on gently shaking 



* " Chemical News," 4th February, 1870. 



