183 Royal Sociehj» — Society of Jntiqiiaries, 



upon ethers, pf which we pledge ourselves to give an ac- 

 count. 



The Institute has approved of the present report, and 

 adopted its conclusions. 



XXXIXt Proceedings of Learned Societies, 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



JVIarch 3, 10, and 17, (A.Marsden, esq., vice-president, in 

 the chair,) Dr. Richardson's geological observations on the 

 North of Ireland vvere read. The Doctor confined himself to 

 what he conceived to be peculiar facts, or rather the local 

 features of the basaltic mountains in the counties of An- 

 frim and Derry, dividing the strata which appear in some of 

 the most perfect columnar basaltes into sixteen divisions, 

 of different depths. He traced the appearance and disap- 

 pearance, in several mountauious places, of those ridges 

 called whin-dikes, and thence inferred that the whole basal- 

 tic district must have originally been one continuous mass, 

 and that the separations or divisions, which now form ex- 

 tensive plains and valleys of several miles extent, must have 

 been formed by some power in nature with which we are at 

 present unacquainted. Dr. Richardson thinks, neither the 

 Neptunian nor Volcanic theory sufficient to explain the v^? 

 ried phaenomena of nature, which must be left to future ages 

 and discoveries. 



Feb. 24. — The reading of observations on the late comet, 

 by Dr. Herschel, commenced. The Doctor defined the 

 terms of head, nucleus, disk, coma, and tail ; and directed 

 his experiments to ascertain the real dimensions of its nu- 

 cleus and disk. These he performed by comparisons with 

 wax-balls viewed in his ten feet reflector, the results of which 

 he applied to the apparerit magnitude of the comet's disk, 



SOCIETY OF ANTiaUARItS. 



Mr. Lysons laid before this society an account and draw- 

 ings of a mosaic pavement found by him at Frampton, Dor- 

 setshire, in 1 796. This was ope of the largest mosaic pave- 

 ments found in modern times 5 it was 3Q f^et Ipug, and 20 



broad, 



