During the last decades of the 19th century day-time and night-time da
ta of surface ozone were collected by means of the Schonbein method at
the coastal observatories of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (23-degrees-S) an
d Manila, Philippines (14-degrees-N) and at the mountain observatory o
f Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico (17-degrees-N, 1574 m a.s.l.). Taking into
account the uncertainties of the method, daily readings have been conv
erted to ppbv concentrations by a procedure already applied to other s
eries of historical data. The calculated time-averaged values show tha
t 1 century ago the ozone levels at tropical latitudes were considerab
ly lower than at mid-latitudes of the northern and southern hemisphere
s, similar to the present-day measurements.