i88o.] 
and Peroxide of Hydrogen 361 
independent of the truth or falsity of any such hypothesis, 
but its properties have been studied with a minuteness and 
exactitude that render it in faCt a much better known body 
than either sulphur or phosphorus. It is questionable 
whether or no sulphur and phosphorus are elementary 
bodies ; but no one doubts that the substance-matter of 
ozone and ordinary oxygen is identical, and the relations 
existing between these allotropic conditions of one and the 
same elemental substance are clearly and sharply defined. 
How does the case stand with antozone ? 
It is manifest that the theoretical speculations of Schon- 
bein upon the existence of eleCtro-negative and of electro- 
positive oxygen, in a state of combination with lower oxides 
in ozonides and antozonides respectively, would strongly 
incline him to the possibility of obtaining, in a free state, 
antozone, corresponding to the previously obtained modifi- 
cation of oxygen, ozone. Accordingly we find later that 
Schonbein thought that the gas set free by the action of oil 
of vitriol on barium peroxide contained antozone. He like- 
wise formulated a number of characteristics by which the 
presence of antozone could be recognised. Without pausing 
to enumerate all of these, it will be of service to us, in ob- 
taining a clear conception of Schonbein’s conception of 
antozone, to specify the three most salient. They are — 
1. That antozone, such as is made from barium peroxide, 
combines with water to form peroxide of hydrogen ; ozone, 
on the contrary, cannot oxidise water to the form of peroxide. 
2. It does not turn manganous salts brown, while ozone 
does, a higher oxide of manganese in the latter case being 
formed. 3. It bleaches paper saturated with manganous 
and lead salts, after they have previously been turned brown 
by ozone. Unfortunately these marks of distinction were 
open to sources of mistake in their verification. But had 
the antozone been odourless, or incapable of turning iodo- 
potassium starch-paper blue, Schonbein would have stated 
grounds of difference which would have rendered it possible 
readily to distinguish between it and ozone. On the con- 
trary, in these two most striking points, according to Schon- 
bein, antozone and ozone were nearly alike. 
Perplexing as the subject was rendered by the numerous, 
and not unfrequently the contradictory, statements of 
Schonbein, it was enveloped in a far more disheartening 
nebulosity, and — it is hardly exaggeration to say — buried 
beneath a dense fog raised around it by the indefatigable 
and life-long labours of Meissner. Witness the following 
samples of Meissner’s modes of conceiving and stating the 
