138 
PROFESSOR SCHOENBEIN ON SPONTANEOUS NITRIFICATION. 
brown colour, and the same acid being neutralized by hydrate of lime, yields in small 
quantities a salt exhibiting all the properties of nitrate of lime. The latter being 
treated, for instance, with carbonate of ammonia, produces a salt which, when mixed 
with some strong sulphuric acid and brucine, strikes a blood-red colour, disengages 
fumes of hyponitric acid, &c. From these facts it appears that nitric acid is present 
in the phosphatic acid, the former being produced during the oxidation which phos- 
phorus undergoes in moist atmospheric air. 
I have further ascertained that hydrate of lime, being suspended in water and suf- 
ficiently long treated with ozonized air, produces a salt exhibiting the properties of a 
nitrate. 
M. Fellenberg has published* results which lead also to the conclusion, that 
either nitrites or nitrates are formed in treating hydrate of lime with ozonized atmo- 
spheric air, and the same chemist has made observations with the phosphatic acid 
coinciding with the results I have obtained from my own experiments. The philo- 
sopher of Lausanne is rather inclined to identify ozone with hyponitric acid. I think, 
however, that such an opinion cannot be upheld, and is contrary to facts, of which I 
gave an account in Poggendorff’s Annals some time ago. According to my expe- 
riments, ozone destroys instantaneously hyponitric acid, hydrate of nitric acid being 
formed. Phosphorus does not shine in atmospheric air containing the smallest 
quantity of hyponitric acid, whilst phosphorus exhibits a very lively disengagement 
of light when placed in atmospheric air, being ever so strongly charged with ozone. 
Blue litmus paper being suspended in air of the latter description is not in the least 
reddened, but simply and rapidly bleached; whilst the same paper placed in atmo- 
spheric air, which is only slightly charged with hyponitric acid, assumes a perceptibly 
red colour. Ozonized air being charged with vapour of ammonia or carbonate of 
ammonia so strongly as to bring back instantly the blue colour of reddened litmus 
paper, enjoys the property of decomposing iodide of potassium (/. e. colouring blue 
the parts of starch mixed with that iodide), transforming the yellow prussiate into 
the red salt, colouring blue the resin of guaiacum, destroying all organic colouring 
matters, changing sulphuret of lead into a sulphate, & c. : the facts stated are suffi- 
cient to prove satisfactorily that ozone is not identical with hyponitric acids. I have, 
however, some other facts to mention which will demonstrate in the most direct 
manner, that ozone has nothing to do with the acid mentioned. 
Ozone is abundantly produced (by means of phosphorus) in moist mixture of per- 
fectly pure oxygen and hydrogen, or oxygen and carbonic acid. Ozone is generated 
by electrical sparks out of the purest oxygen obtainable, provided that principle con- 
tain some moisture. Ozone makes its appearance round the positive electrode, if 
a current passes through acidulated water containing no trace of nitrogen or any 
azotic compound. We are therefore allowed to consider it as a settled matter, that 
ozone is different both from nitrous and hyponitric acids. 
* See Les Archives de l’Electricite, No. 17, p. 24-34. 
