i88o.l 
and Peroxide of Hydrogen. 
359 
which to write discoveries of permanent value. Such being 
the case, it would certainly be an unremunerative toil to 
weigh and ponder the great bulk of conflicting data con- 
cerning antozone. The most we would feel willing to 
undertake would be to inquire into the grounds upon which 
such mistaken views were originally built ; further, into the 
experiments which appeared to confirm these views, and 
eventually to win for them the credence of philosophers in 
general ; and, finally, to examine narrowly into the validity 
of the experimental evidence which is regarded as demon- 
strating conclusively the non-existence of antozone. 
The ground was prepared for the growth of a belief in the 
actual separate existence of antozone by the promulgation 
by Schonbein of his theory of Ozonides and Antozonides. 
Under the former class he included the peroxides which, in 
their action upon other bodies, manifested a strong likeness 
to ozone, the typical body of this class being the peroxide 
of lead. 
Without enumerating all the features in their deportment 
towards other bodies, an enumeration which would serve 
only to confuse us, it will be sufficient for our present pur- 
pose to note that the properties of ozonides that Schonbein 
regarded as most characteristic were their power of libe- 
rating chlorine on contact with hydrochloric acid ; of being 
reduced by peroxide of hydrogen to lower oxides (water and 
ordinary oxygen at the same time being generated) ; and of 
causing the tincture of the resin guaiacum to turn blue. 
Antozonides, on the other hand, were those peroxides 
which, under the circumstances detailed above, behaved in 
quite contrary fashion, — under no circumstances liberating 
chlorine from a chloride, not decomposing peroxide of hy- 
drogen, and not turning guaiacum tincture blue. The typical 
body of this class was peroxide of barium. 
And inasmuch as Schonbein thought he had demonstrated 
that ozone is electro-negative oxygen, and that the ozonides 
were combinations of a lower oxide with ozone, he accord- 
ingly regarded the antozonides as combinations of a lower 
oxide with electro-positive oxygen. This electro-positive 
oxygen he appears to have named antozone to distinguish it 
from ozone, and to indicate the function it performed in 
antozonides, without claiming, at least at the outset, that it 
had been or could be isolated in a free condition. The fact 
that an ozonide and an antozonide could naturally decompose 
one another, and both at the same time undergo reduction 
to the state of lower oxides with liberation of ordinary 
oxygen, was regarded as lending great probability to the 
