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Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 11, 18 March 1867, Page 64

. Ozone. —This substance, the sufficiensnpply of which ,ih the atmosphere js supposed, .from the. observations recorded in the.Yital Statistics of this and other countries, to be. essential for the'preservation of health anti;life, is believed to be ; oxygen in a particular condition through electrical action.. The name is derived from ozo (smell) ; and -was applied on account of the peculiar smell observed when, there is ® discharge of electricity. The identity of ozone with oxygen is inferred from the fact that when an electrical current is caused : by a battery in which metals that rapidly oxidise are employed, no ozone is perceptible; whereas when metals that do not really oxidize are used ozone is produced. So that the absorption of oxvgen prevents the production of ozone. The exact nature of ozone is not, however, as yet a matter of certainty. If it is, as supposed, a form -of oxygen, a deficiency of ozone; which has been observed to be coincident with injury to the general health, is in fact a deficiency of electrical action in the: atmosphere.' And when there is such a deficiency in any part of the atmosphere, tile abnormal state incites the storm that? rectifies -it. Hence the oppressivenoss of the air before a thunderstorm , and the freshness of the air afterwards. . Hoeeibxe Sttpeestition.— The Alia j California of 27th October, says:—“Some i months since,, a man calling himself a < Spiritual Doctor—the city is 1 becoming i overrun with such humbugs—came here from Yiotoria in: company, with a woman and her little daughter, some ten years of age. The woman, as we are informed, left a husband, the father of the child, in Victoria. Both the man and the woman were affected with spiritualism; and something put it into their heads that if the woman would submit to starvation, up to a certain point, she would be developed into a “seeing medium.” She determined to devote herself to the work, ab* stained from food until she was unable to sit up, took to her bed, and persisted in the effort to attain the beatific point until death released the poor victim of a wicked imposture from mortal sufferings. It would'be but natural to suppose that the man—if. he. can. be called, such—would have become satisfied of the criminal folly of his proceedings by this time, and would desist from further operations of the kind. Instead of this,, however, the spirits demanded another victim, and assured him that if he would subject the child to the same treatment to which the mother was subjected, the progress made by the mother towards the desired point would be credited to the child, and she would become a seeing medium” in a short time. The child was actually placed under the starvation treatment, hut the neighbours becoming indignant put a stop to the matter yesterday by taking out a warrant for the arrest of the child, and her examination for the Industrial Sohool. The child was taken into custody last evening, and taken to -the county gaol, and plaeed in the custody of the good matron of the establishment pending the examination. This is A'.D. 1866.