My dear Faraday,
Many months ago I sent you a letter1 and some papers of mine without having received from you any answer since. Being afraid of my parcel having been miscarried I forward to you another by the kindness of Mr. Drew of Southampton and hope you will get it in time.
The single paper treats of a subject of a general nature, and if you should feel curious to get acquainted with certain views of your friend’s Schoenbein, you will perhaps find some body translating it for you.
The question of the nature of Ozone seems to have been settled in the laboratory of Mr. Bunsen2 at Heidelberg and it appears that both views hitherto entertained about that subtle agent are correct3; there is one sort of Ozone containing nothing but Oxigen and another that contains some hydrogen. Common oxigen being absolutely anhydrous is transformed into the first one by electrical discharges, as de la Rive4 and Berzelius5 maintained some years ago. The odoriferous principle disengaged at the positive Electrode on electrolysing water is a compound consisting of two Eq. of pure Ozone or allotropic oxigen and one Eq. of water = HO6.
How such a wonderful change of properties can be effected in oxigen without adding to or taking away any ponderable substance from that body is indeed very difficult to say; I, at least, know nothing about it but suspect that something very fundamental is at the bottom of that fact. It is a riddle to be solved by you only.
Just preparing for a journey to Vienna and Munich I am in a great hurry and you will therefore excuse the emptiness of this letter. I promise you to write a better one after my return, which will not be prolonged beyond four weeks. I intend to go down the Danube, the scenery of which is as yet entirely new to me.
Pray transmit leisurely the volume laid by to Mr. Grove, who I think now and then sees you in the Royal Institution.
In asking you the favor to present my best compliments to Mrs. Faraday I am
My dear Faraday | Your’s | most truly | C.F. Schoenbein
Bâle July 11, 1853.
BAUMERT, Friedrich Moritz (1853): “Ueber eine neue Oxydationsstufe des Wasserstoffs und ihr Verhältniss zum Ozon”, Pogg. Ann., 89: 38-55.
MARIGNAC, Jean Charles Galissard de (1845): “Sur la production et la nature de l'ozone”, Comptes Rendus, 20: 808-11.
Please cite as “Faraday2699,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on