The loss is too great; but I was not supplied with a sufficient quantity of the ore to repeat the analysis. From my mode of proceeding, I think it likely that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the loss was sulphur. In that case the ore would be a compound of

Or, supposing the sulphuret of iron accidentally present, it is composed of an integrant particle of sulphuret of lead and two integrant particles of sulphuret of copper.

20. Notice concerning the Structure of the Cells in the Combs of Bees and Wasps. By Dr. Barclay.-It appears, from this communication, that the partitions between different cells in the combs of bees and wasps are all double; or in other words, that each cell is a distinct, separate, and in some measure an independent structure, agglutinated only to the neighbouring cells and that when the agglutinating substance is destroyed, each cell may be entirely separated from the rest.

ARTICLE XIII.

Proceedings of Philosophical Societies.

ROYAL SOCIETY.

On Thursday, the 12th of January, the remainder of Mr. Travers's paper on the way in which the eye accommodates itself to the sight of objects at different distances, was read. He considers. the iris as muscular, and as connected with a kind of inner iris, or ring, which by its contraction increases the convexity of the lens. The eye he conceives is only acted upon by the stimulus of light. Hence he believes that the contraction of the iris is regulated entirely by the retina. The eye, in his opinion, is fitted naturally for viewing distant objects. When near objects are viewed the iris contracts, in consequence of which the inner ring acts upon the lens, and increases its convexity. The sensation of fatigue he supposes owing to the over-action of the external muscles of the eye, and not to any fatigue in the iris itself.

On Thursday, the 19th of January, a paper by Dr. Storer was read, giving an account of a well dug in Bridlington harbour, Yorkshire, within high water-mark. The bottom of the harbour is a bed of clay; through this they bored to the rock below; a tinned copper pipe was then put into the circular cavity, and the whole properly secured. The cavity was soon filled with pure water. When the tide rises to within about 50 inches of the mouth of this well, the fresh water begins to flow over, and the quantity flowing

increases as the tide rises, and the flow continues till the tide sinks more than 50 inches below the mouth of the well. During storms, the water flows in waves, similar to the waves of the sea. Mr. Milne accounts for the flowing of this singular well in this way: the whole bay, he conceives, has a clay bottom. The water between the rock and this clay can flow out nowhere except at the termination of the clay, which is under the sea. As the tide rises, the obstruction to this mode of escape of the water will increase. Hence less will make its way below the clay, and of course it will rise and flow out at the top of the well.

At the same meeting a paper by Dr. Brewster was read, on the effect of pressure on transparent animal bodies, in causing them to polarize light. His first experiment was with a film of calf's-foot jelly. At first it produced no effect upon light; but as it became more and more firm it depolarized the light, at first at the edges, and at last throughout. The same thing was the case with a film of izinglass. When these films were subjected to pressure they depolarized light at first, and exhibited those complimentary colours which are peculiar to crystallized bodies.

LINNEAN SOCIETY.

On Tuesday, the 17th of January, a paper by the Rev. Patrick Keith, on the epidermis of plants, was read. He gave an historical account of the different opinions entertained by vegetable physiologists respecting the epidermis. He himself considers it as composed of fibres rather than cells, an opinion adopted by some other persons. He gave an account of the epidermis of saffron, in which he found a peculiar structure. He observed pores likewise on the veins of leaves, where hitherto it has been supposed that they do not exist.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

In consequence of the great distance of the Editor from the place of meeting of the Geological Society, it has not been in his power for some time past to continue the regular details of the interesting papers read at their meetings. He now resumes these details from the time that they were interrupted.

March 4, 1814, a memoir, entitled, Observations on the Hill of Kinnoul, by Dr. Macculloch, V. Pr. G. S. was read.

The hill of Kinnoul, in the vicinity of the town of Perth, rises about 600 feet above the plain of the Tay. It is nearly a mile in length, and exhibits many abrupt faces in a state of constant ruin and depredation. It consists principally of floetz trap, sometimes in the state of black basalt, sometimes of a brownish red colour, but retaining the other characters of basalt; sometimes rendered porphyritic by the presence of numerous minute crystals of opake felspar; sometimes porphyritic and amygdaloidal; and sometimes simply amygdaloidal, with a base of basalt, often passing into wacke. The concretions of the amygdaloid are green earth or chlorite in small grains, and varying in structure from compact to

completely scaly; calcareous spar, either single or mixed, with quartz or agate; quartz either common or amethystine; and agate and coloured and zoned chalcedony: sometimes the agate is partly stalactitical and partly zoned from green heliotrope without the red spots by which it is usually marked which also occurs in veins.

On the top of the great mass of trap is a bed of conglomerate, consisting of trap pebbles imbedded in a cement of the same nature. The most remarkable circumstance, however, in the hill of Kinnoul, is the variety of interesting junctions which it presents of the trap with grey-wacke-slate. These two rocks are intermixed and involved with the other in various ways, and the slate adjacent to the planes of contact is inflated and spongy, exhibiting a structure very analogous to that of the burnt micaceous schistus which is sometimes found in the walls of the vitrified forts, except that in the former the cavities are filled with calcareous spar.

The peculiarities in the structure of some of the agates, and in the trap and grey-wacke at the places of their junction, are in the opinion of the author of this paper, not to be accounted for by the exclusive agency either of fusion or of consolidation from aqueous solution.

A letter from Mr. Henry Sports, of Salisbury, on the formation of flint was also read. Certain of the flint nodules exhibit unquestionable marks of animal organization; and from this fact Mr. S. supposes that all flint has originated from sponges, alcyonia, and the spongeous zoophites, converted by some unknown process into silicious earth.

On the 18th of March and 1st of April, a paper by Nat. Wynch, Esq. on the geology of part of Northumberland and Durham was partly read.

Mr. W. begins his paper with a description of the magnesian lime-stone which makes its first appearance at Cullercoates, in Northumberland, and stretches in a S. W. direction between the rivers Tyne and Tees. At Whitley quarry, near Cullercoates, this formation may be seen resting on the coal strata; and in other parts the workings of adjacent collieries have been actually driven to a short distance under the lime-stone, although no sinkings begun in the lime-stone have ever been carried down as far as the coal. It is not, therefore, ascertained that the coal is of equal extent with the lime-stone; but unfortunately it is too well known that the coal has constantly proved to be excessively deteriorated where covered by the magnesian lime-stone. This formation is composed of strata of lime-stone of various qualities and appearance, such as white, brown, and fetid, very ferruginous, oolitic, &c. alternating with shale, and traversed by thin strings of galena. In the beds of the Tees occurs a red sand-stone, the geological relations of which are but little known. Sinkings have been made in it in different places to the depth of from 70 to 80 fathoms in search of coal, but wholly without success.

The coal formation rests upon the lead-mine measures, and is in

part covered by the magnesian lime-stone. It is in the form of a trough, the extreme length of which from N. to S. is 58 miles; and its breadth from the sea-coast westwards is about 24 miles. The general inclination of the coal strata is one yard in 20, but subject to considerable local irregularities. The earthy beds which separate the coal seams from each other are potter's clay, slaty-clay in various states of induration, and sand-stone both massive and slaty. Of the latter beds some are quarried for flag-stone; and one, a buffcoloured fine-grained sand-stone, called the grind-stone sill, furnishes the celebrated Newcastle grind-stones. Thin beds and nodules of clay-iron- stone, the latter containing impressions of ferns and bivalve shells, occur in the shale or slaty-clay. A few dykes of basalt or green-stone intersect the coal formations. The best known is called Walker's Dyke. It is composed in Walker Colliery of two solid and parallel walls of green-stone of the thickness of three yards and six yards, with an interval of about 11 feet, composed of fragments of green-stone and sand-stone imbedded in blue slate. The dyke is perfectly vertical, and divides, but does not dislocate or heave the strata which it traverses. The coal on each side of it, to a distance of three to six yards, is converted into a hard cellular cinder, the cells of which are often occupied by calcareous spar and sulphur.

Fissures or slips are of frequent occurrence in this as in every other coal-field, and occasion much trouble and expense to the miner. Numerous mineral springs, containing more or less of common salt, occur in the whole of the coal-field.

April 15.-A communication from S. Solly, Esq. on the newer formations, particularly that of floetz trap, was read.

From the remarkable differences, notwithstanding their general resemblance, which prevail amongst the floetz trap, and other recent floetz rocks of the same species in different countries, Mr. Solly is induced to suppose that these are not parts of an universal formation, as is held by Werner and his pupils, but that they originate from local deposites. These local deposites are considered by the author of the paper as owing their peculiar structure and other characters partly to the influence of heat derived from the electric fluid, and partly to the action of crystalline polarity operating within them, while they were apparently in a quiescent state.

A paper by Dr. Berger on the geology of the North of Ireland was begun.

May 6.--The reading of Dr. Berger's paper on the geology of the North of Ireland was continued.

A paper entitled A Description of the Tunnel of Tavistock Canal through Morwel Down, in the County of Devon, by John Taylor, Esq. M. G.S. was read.

Morwel Down is a hill near Tavistock, and to the west of that place, which separates the valley of Tamar from that of the Tavy. The height of this hill is about 700 feet above the tide-way in the river Tamar. It is composed of schist (in the dialect of the country VOL. V. N° II.

K

killas), and in the immediate vicinity of the mines which have recently been opened in that part of the county.

In 1803 an Act of Parliament was obtained for cutting a canal from the town of Tavistock to Morwelham, a quay on the river Tamar. An essential part of this plan was a tunnel through hard rock, about a mile and three quarters in length; passing through Morwel Down at an average depth, from the surface of about 400 feet, and in a direction calculated to cut through all the E. and W. or metalliferous veins that might traverse the hill. Of this important undertaking somewhat less than one-fourth remains to be performed; but the portion already executed has disclosed several important geological facts, which are detailed in this paper, and in the section and specimens by which it is accompanied.

Six beds or dykes have been cut through, the thickness of which varies from six to 26 fathoms. Their direction is inclined to that of the metalliferous veins, and they dip pretty uniformly to the North; they are composed of clay-porphyry, of another variety of porphyry, of quartz, and of quartz mixed with chlorite.

Several metallic veins, some of them already productive, and affording copper, and in a few instances tin, have also been discovered; they traverse all the strata, and exhibit a remarkable difference in their dip or under-lay on the two sides of the hill, those on the north side dipping to the north, and those on the south side dipping to the south.

May 20.-A communication from Lord Webb Seymour was read.

This paper is accompanied with explanatory drawings, and describes an instrument of his Lordship's invention called a clinometer, for the purpose of determining the position of the planes of stratification. The instrument itself had been previously presented to the Society.

A paper, accompanied with specimens, containing mineralogical remarks on part of the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company, compiled from the reports of several observers, by the Earl of Selkirk, was read.

From Mr. Aulds it appears that the bed of Nelson river, seven miles below Hamborough Head, and not far from its mouth, presents several rapids, which are formed by flat strata of lime-stone, and in one instance by whin-stone (probably one of the trap rocks by which stratified lime-stone is so often accompanied). The effect of the ice floods in this river is very remarkable. The water charged with pieces of ice appears to be capable of detaching large blocks of lime-stone, and conveying them to a considerable distance. A deposite of this kind, the work of a single season, is described as forming a shoal 200 or 300 yards in length, and consisting of small stones covered by several hundred blocks of the same kind, weighing several tons each, and four feet and more in thickness.

There is reason to believe that the same lime-stone formation extends through all the country west of Lake Wimpie, as far as the