SIE B. C. BKODIE ON THE ACTION OE ELECTKICITY ON GASES. 
103 
No discovery has ever, perhaps, been made more calculated to throw light upon the 
nature of the elemental bodies than the discovery of the chemical constitution of ozone. 
Since the time when the molecular constitution of the elements first seriously engaged 
the attention of chemists, the opinion has prevailed that the units of oxygen and chlorine 
are of the same class, being each constituted of two similar atoms, between which we 
cannot discriminate. This view, notwithstanding the real and cogent arguments by 
which it is supported, had for many years to struggle against the prepossessions of the 
electro-chemical theory. It is, however, now paramount, and the opinion that we have 
no alternative in the matter is almost universal. I myself have, however, distinctly 
proved* that there is such an alternative, and that chlorine may at least with equal 
probability be regarded as a triad element constituted of three “ simple weights,” of 
which the unit is to be symbolized as a^ 2 . Now in ozone, | 3 , we have actually before 
us an element of this peculiar triad class, to which not only is the unit of chlorine 
analogous in form, but to which it is also analogous in properties. The formation of 
this triad element places beyond a doubt the possibility of the existence of such a class. 
Another chemical substance which stands in the most intimate relation to ozone is the 
binoxide of hydrogen, the artificial element “ hydroxyl,” a| 2 , which is connected on the one 
hand with the unit of ozone, on the other with the unit of chlorinef, being derived from 
the unit of ozone by the substitution in that unit of the simple weight a for one of the 
simple weight |, and derived from the unit of chlorine by the substitution in that unit 
of the simple weight | for the simple weight %, the three substances being also connected 
by the closest analogy in their chemical properties. 
The complete analysis of the electrized gas will be considered in another communi- 
cation. 
* Philosophical Transactions, 1866, vol. clvi. p. 818. 
t In relation to the analogies of chlorine and the binoxide of hydrogen, see Chem. Soc. Q. J. vol. xvii. (1864)/ 
p. 281, “ The Organic Peroxides theoretically considered,” by the author. 
