Royal Society of Edinburgh. 471 



Fered to die. Professor Davy suggested to the author, that 

 the cold air thrown into the lungs (which produced the 

 usual change in the colour of the blood) might contribute 

 to this effect; and accordingly an experiment was madr to 

 obviate such consequence by means of a ligature : when it 

 appeared, that i:; an hour and forty minutes the body in 

 which the circulation was artificially continued after di- 

 v : dmg the spinal marrow, was only one degree colder than 

 that which died immediately. Mr. B.'s experiments seem to 

 militate against the doctrine of the vitality of the blood; 

 but they do little towards illustrating the fact, that tortoises 

 can live and walk about long alter having been deprived 

 entirely of the brain, and even part of the spinal marrow. 

 On the evening of the 20th, part of a letter from Dr. 

 Parry, of Bath, was read, on certain nervous affections; as 

 convulsions, tremulous motions, and sudden slartings or 

 pulsations of what is vulgarly called the life blood ; after 

 which the society adjourned till January 10. 



KOV r AL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



On Monday the 5th of November, the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh met for the first time in their new apartments 

 Sri George-street, when Dr. Thomas Thomson read two 

 papers, giving the account of the analyses of two new mi- 

 nerals from Greenland. To one of them he has given the 

 name of allanite, and to the other sodalite. In the first 

 he discovered a considerable portion of cerium, and in one 

 analysis he detected a quantity of a^ metallic oxide per- 

 fectly new in its properties, for which he proposed the 

 name of junonium. The other mineral, according to his 

 investigation, affords 23 percent, of soda and three of mu- 

 riatic acid. By an analysis of Mr. Ekeberg, the same con- 

 stituents were yielded in the proportions of 25 per cent, and 

 six per cent. 



At the next meeting on the 19th, a short communica- 

 tion was read,, respecting a singular water-spout observed 

 at Ramsgate. 



On the 3d inst. a paper by Dr. Brewster was read, being 

 a new demonstration of the fundamental properties of, the 

 lever. — Also a communication by Sir George Mackenzie, 

 Bart, relative to the hot springs of Iceland ; when Sir George 

 exhibited some beautiful drawings and part of a series of 

 magnificent specimens from that country, which he pro- 

 poses to deposit in the cabinet of the Society: and at the 

 last meeting, on the 1 7th, Sir George began a description 

 of the minerals of Iceland, when he exhibited specimen 

 from the district called the Guldbringe Syssel. 



LXXXIV. In- 



