Christian Friedrich Schoenbein to Faraday   11 December 1860

My dear Faraday,

If I am not mistaken, the last letter, I wrote to you was that, by which I introduced to you Mr. Wiedemann about six months ago¹ and having ever since not heard any news from you, and being very anxious to know, how you are doing, I take up once more my pen to ask you the favor of a letter, so much the more, that I am at this present moment laid up by the Gout, a condition of body entirely new to me and on that very account by no means agreeable. Indeed, up to last wednesday a fortnight, I had known that of the ills “which human flesh is heir to”² only by name and from english novels, you may therefore easily imagine, how much I was surprized at finding at once my legs, hitherto so loyal and obedient in a state of open rebellion. No other choice was left to the poor sovereign, than to let his subjects rage and go their own way. To tell you the truth, I am afraid, that I have not been entirely blameless and it is perhaps, partly at least, my own fault, that such a catastrophe has occurred. I have carried on a savage war of conquest these last four or five months and to arrive at my end, I was rather reckless, drawing very largely on the forces of my subjects and caring very little about their welfare. I certainly carried the point, but as it seems at the expence of the loyalty of the inferior classes of my realm, I entertain however the flattering hopes, that better times are approaching and a full restoration of my royal authority will take place before long. But why waging such a war? Oxigen, as you well know, is my hero as well as my foe and being not only strong but inexhaustible in strategies and full of tricks, I was obliged to call up all my forces to lay hold of him and make the subtle Being my prisoner. Now to drop the metaphor, I will tell you, that I have been working very hard these many months to get the “Antozone” or <plus>O in its insulated state and I flatter myself to have succeeded in that undertaking, at least to a certain extent. You are aware, that from a number of facts, notably from the reciprocal desoxidizing influence exerted by many oxy-compounds upon each other, I drew the inference, that there exist two series of oxides, one of which contain <minus>O the other <plus>O: “the Ozonides and Antozonides.” The mutual desoxidation of those compounds I made dependent upon the depolarisation or neutralisation of <plus>O and <minus>O into O. Now <plus>O and <minus>O being able to be transformed into O, I thought it possible, even likely, that the contrary might be effected, i.e the chemical polarisation of O into <plus>O and <minus>O, and you know that in the course of the last and present year, I have ascertained a great number of facts, that speak, as far as I can see, highly in favor of that Idea. As the typical or fundamental fact of this chemical polarisation of O, I consider the simultaneous production of <minus>O and HO + <plus>O taking place during the slow combustion of phosphorus. This simultaneity is such, that ozone never makes its appearance without its equivalent HO + <plus>O. All the metals slowly oxidizing themselves, HO being present, such as Zinc, lead, iron &c. give rise to the formation of HO + <plus>O and the same do a great number of organic substances, such as ether, the tannic, gallic and pyro-gallic acids, hiematoxiline &c. and even reduced Indigo, being associated to potash &c. makes no exception to the rule. The same simultaneity takes place during the electrolysis of water: never Ozone without peroxide of hydrogen. I admit therefore, that O, on being put in contact with an oxidable substance and water, undergoes that change of condition, which I call “chemical polarisation” i.e. is turned into <minus>O and <plus>O, of which the latter combines with HO to form HO + <plus>O, whilst <minus>O is associated to the oxidable matter, such as phosphorus, Zinc &c. In the preceding statements you have only a very rough outline of my late researches on the chemical polarisation of neutral Oxigen; the details on that subject are contained in a number of papers lately published, and of which your english periodicals have as yet not taken any notice. Having gone so far, I could not but be very curious to try, whether it was not possible to obtain <plus>O in its insulated or free state. I directed of course my attention to that set of peroxides, which I call “Antozonides” and tried in different ways to eliminate from them that part of their oxigen, which I consider to be <plus>O. Already year’s ago I remarked, in accordance with an observation made by Mr. Houzeau³ that the oxigen disengaged from the peroxide of Barium by the means of the monohydrate of SO<3>, exhibits an ozone like smell and the power of turning my ozone test-paper blue⁴. Having at that time not yet a notion of two opposite active conditions of Oxigen, I was inclined to ascribe those properties to the presence of minute quantities of Ozone in the said Gas, but on examining it more closely, I found it to be neutral oxigen mixt up with a very small portion of Antozone or <plus>O. A most important and distinctive property of Antozone is the readiness, with which it unites with water to form peroxide of hydrogen, whilst Ozone (alike neutral oxigen) is entirely incapable of doing so. Hence it comes, that the oxigen disengaged from BaO + <plus>O under certain precautions, becomes inodorous on being shaken with water, and that this fluid contains HO<2>. The simple cause of the minute quantities of <minus>O obtained from Ba<<O + <plus>O>> is the heat disengaged during the action of SO<3> upon the peroxide by which most of the <plus>O eliminated is transformed into <minus>O.

Now, what do you say to the extraordinary fact, that the antipode of ozone has these many thousand years been ready formed and incarcerated, only waiting for somebody to recognize and let it loose out of its prison. A dark blue species of Fluor spar has for years been known by the german Mineralogists, being distinguished by its property of producing a peculiarly disagreeable smell on being triturated. Many conjectures were put up as to the chemical nature of the odorous matter emitted from the spar: Chlorine, Jodine, and even Ozone were spoken of, but it turned out to be a different thing. Mr. Schafhaeutl⁵ of Munic sent me a month ago some hundred gramms of the said Fluor-spar (occurring within the veins of a granitic rock at Woelsendorf a bavarian village near Amberg), asking me to try my luck in ascertaining the nature of the smelling matter and I think I have fully succeeded in making out what it is. Surprizing as it may sound to you and unique as the fact certainly is, that matter happens to be nothing but my insolated Antozone. But how do you prove that, will you ask me. In the first place it exactly smells like <plus>O, disengaged from BaO<2>; but smells are fallacious tests. They are. You shall have another proof, that will irresistibly carry conviction with it: on triturating the Fluorspar with water, peroxide of hydrogen is formed, not in homeopathic but very perceptible quantities. When I found out first this extraordinary fact, I think it was on the 17th of Nov. last, I could not help laughing aloud, though I happened to be quite alone in my laboratory. I laughed, because I strongly suspected my foe to be hidden in the spar and broke his mask under water with the view of catching it by that fluid. Indeed, it was to me, as if I had caught a very cunning fox long sought after in a trap put up for him. To show you, that in saying this I have neither been joking nor dreaming, I shall send you as soon as I can, a sample of that wonderful spar, with which you may easily satisfy your curiousity and convince yourself of the correctness of my statements. I must not omit to tell you, that according to some previous experiments of mine the Fluor-spar of Woelsendorf contains 1/5000th part of Antozone, a quantity, as you see not at all homeopathic. How that subtle matter got into the spar, I cannot tell. Being once more upon my legs, I shall, as you may easily imagine, make a new attack upon my foe, with the view and hope of conquering him entirely. The price to be gained by such a fight is not too dearly paid, even by another fit of gout. Having already been too prolix about the matter, I must now drop it; before long you shall read a paper containing the details about insulated <plus>O. Having also worked a good deal on nitrification and obtained a number of novel facts relative to that interesting chemical process, I could fill up another letter with a summary statement of them, but there being no space left, I am forced to give you an account of those researches another time and confine myself to the simple remark, that in a number of cases the formation of a nitrate passes through that of a Nitrite and ozonised oxigen only is capable of oxidizing a nitrite into a nitrate.

Mrs. Schoenbein and the girls are, thank God, pretty well and charge me with their kindest regards to you. The deep wound, caused by the severe loss of our beloved daughter⁶ is, of course not yet healed and we cannot think of it but with painful feelings, but upon the whole <<our mi>>nds are more composed and resigned. The sad mishap of Miss Hornblower’s <<caused>> us much sorrow and we fully sympathize with the suffering, excellent Lady, <<confid>>ently hoping, that her present state is at the least tolerable. Pray, express <<to her>> our kindest regards.

<<Now>> my dear Faraday excuse kindly the immeasurate length of a badly written <<lette>>r and don’t be long to acknowledge it.

For ever | Your’s | most faithfully | C.F. Schoenbein

Bâle Dec.21 1860.

Don’t forget my best compliments to Mrs. Faraday and your Niece.

Address: Doctor Michael Faraday | &c &c &c | Royal Institution | Albemarl-Street | London