Royal Society. 451 



the important truth, that the hottest part is that furthest re- 

 moved from external modifying causes. 



13. The salt water springing up in the floor of the coal, 

 on the dip side, is a favourable circumstance. Its tempera- 

 ture, like that of the fresh rock, is highest when first tried: by 

 exposure to the external agent it is cooled nearly a degree in 

 three hours, from a temperature which was already nearly 

 2° too low. 



14-. The gas, which is constantly bubbling out from its cel- 

 lular reservoirs, brings more completely, perhaps, than any- 

 thing else, the real temperature of the interior. It no doubt 

 supplies warmth to the surface of the coal, and was found 

 hotter than the water through which it rose by no less than a 

 degree. 



15. Mr. Whitley's experiment is surely liable to no ob- 

 jection but one, viz. that the pouring of water at 56° into 

 so bad a conductor as coal, was likely to give a result rather 

 below the truth. 



16. I have said nothing of local chemical action, since in 

 this situation no indications of oxides or salts of iron, or 

 other products, depending on decomposition of pyrites, or 

 other probable sources, have as yet manifested themselves. Be- 

 sides this, all the deep coal-works of this country, as I learn 

 from Mr. Buddie, agree in proving the augmentation of tem- 

 perature to be a general fact, independent of the pure or 

 pyritous quality of the coal, and of the development of inflam- 

 mable gas. 



17. The total depth of the floor of the coal is 1584 feet; 

 the pit top is 87 feet above ordinary high water; its depth 

 below the level of the sea, 1497 feet. If the depth of the in- 

 variable plane be taken at 100 feet, and the mean tempera- 

 ture of the place 47°*6, we have 72°*6 — 47°'6 = 25°*0 aug- 

 mentation of temperature in 1484 feet = 1° for 59*36 feet, or 

 in round numbers 1° Fahr. for 20 yards English. 



Newcastle, Nov. 18, 1834. 



LXV. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from vol. iv. p. 441.] 



1834. A PAPER was read, entitled, " Of the Functions of 



May 15. — -tlm. some parts of the Brain ; and of the relations between 



the Brain and Nerves of Motion and Sensation." By Sir Charles 



Bell, K.H., F.R.S. 



The author commences his paper by an enumeration of some of the 

 sources of difficulty and of error which have impeded the progress of 



3M2 



