3^3 
l88o.] and Peroxide of Hydrogen. 
necessarily different from ozone, Meissner gave the name of 
Atmizone. Later he identified it with, and called it by, the 
same name as Schonbein’s, Antozone. Von Babo, on the 
contrary, found that the clouds were only peroxide of hy- 
drogen diffused through vapour of water, and capable of 
being transported along with it, and even passing with it 
through aqueous solutions for long distances, without being 
deposited or absorbed. 
Unfortunately these results of Von Babo were encumbered 
with certain vague and doubtful speculations concerning the 
mode of genesis of the peroxide of hydrogen, through the 
interaction of ozone and water in the presence of an 
oxidisable substance. That they were in reality conclusive 
against the existence of the so-called antozone was not 
generally recognised until the labours of Nasse and Engler 
(1870), upon the gas set free by the adtion of sulphuric acid 
upon peroxide of barium, had confirmed their truth and 
illuminated their proper bearings and significance. Nasse 
and Engler, by simple and trenchant experiments, demon- 
strated that the gas evolved in this case was a mixture, 
containing not only ozone, but also water and peroxide of 
hydrogen. When the escaping gas was passed through a 
series of tubes surrounded with a freezing mixture, the 
latter underwent condensation, and the permanent gas which 
passed on was ozone. The condensed product, when sub- 
jected to appropriate tests, proved to be merely a solution of 
peroxide of hydrogen. Carry the simple explanation thus 
afforded with you, and see with what a flood of light it 
illuminates all the hitherto hopelessly obscure passages in 
the history of antozone, and enables one to give readily a 
natural explanation 10 phenomena which at the time of their 
original discovery perplexed mightily their discoverers, and 
led them to form many ingenious, but in the end harmful, 
hypotheses. 
For instance, examine, with the aid thus given, Schonbein’s 
first distinguishing characteristic of antozone, i.e., as made 
from barium peroxide it combines with water to form per- 
oxide of hydrogen. Since the gas given off in this reaction 
consists not only of ozone, but of peroxide of hydrogen, the 
peroxide of hydrogen which Schonbein thought was formed 
on its coming into contaCt with water really pre-existed. 
Consider his second test — that antozone does not turn man- 
ganous salts brown, while ozone does. This difference is 
likewise true of peroxide of hydrogen as compared with 
ozone. The same remark applies to his third test — that it 
bleaches papers saturated with manganous salts,, after they 
