THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
MARCH, 1880, 
I. THE LINES OF DISCOVERY IN THE 
HISTORY OF OZONE. 
By Albert R. Leeds, Ph.D. 
I. Its Original Discovery , Sources , and Properties . 
t HE history of ozone begins with the clear apprehension, 
in the year 1840, by Schonbein, that in the odour 
given off in the electrolysis of water, and accom- 
panying discharges of fridtional electricity in air, he had to 
deal with a distinct and important phenomenon. Schon- 
bein’s discovery did not consist in noting the odour ; that 
had been done by Van Marum, more than half a century 
before, but in first appreciating the importance and true 
meaning of the phenomenon. For while Van Marum, 
Cavallo, and others who followed them, connected the odour 
with the electricity, calling it the “ electrical odour ” or 
“ aura eledlrica,” and thus made it the property of an im- 
ponderable agent, Schonbein ascribed it to the peculiar form 
of matter operated upon. The hypothesis of Van Marum 
necessarily remained barren of fruits ; that of Schonbein 
speedily enriched chemical science with a host of acquisitions. 
Clinging tenaciously to the doCtrine that there could not be 
a variety of origin for one and the same odour, and that the 
kind of matter producing it in every case must be identical, 
Schonbein fixed his discovery by giving to that one and 
certain kind of matter the name of Ozone. By adhering 
to this guiding clue, he added, as a third source of ozone, 
the aCtion of moist phosphorus upon air (1840 to 1843), and 
since that time, besides electrolysis, eleCtrical influence, and 
vol. 11. (third series). m 
