264 Lieut.-Col. Yorke on Brown Iron Ore, 



results seem more likely to be effected by a vibratory motion 

 of molecules than by a continuous effluence of caloric fluid. In 

 fact, vibratory motion is the sole cause of the phaenomena he 

 observed, and not the heat produced by the friction. 



There are a number of points of great importance in this 

 inquiry which demand further investigation, but which at pre- 

 sent I cannot follow out from want of proper apparatus ; but 

 I hope it will meet with the attention from men of science 

 which it deserves ; indeed it cannot be in better hands than 

 in those of Ermann, who, I hope, will prosecute the subject 

 with vigour. 



The effect of vibratory motion on bodies has hitherto at- 

 tracted little attention, strange to say, although it must pro- 

 duce some very curious effects on them. Its effects on che- 

 mical combination will, I am sure, very shortly yield some 

 extremely beautiful results. I have been myself trying some 

 experiments of this kind latterlj', and shall, I hope, be able in 

 a short time to communicate my results to this Journal. One 

 experiment however deserves to be mentioned here. While 

 in Giessen I saw the curious result obtained by Drs. Hofmanu 

 and Blyth, by heating styrole in a closed tube to a tempera- 

 ture of 200° centigrade, by which that substance was con- 

 verted into a solid vitreous mass having exactly the same com- 

 position as the styrole, to which they gave the name of meta- 

 styrole. Some time after I thought 1 might be able to pro- 

 duce a similar effect, by subjecting a portion of it inclosed in 

 a tube to rapid vibration for several days. For this purpose 

 I prepared a considerable portion of styrole and inclosed it in 

 a long narrow glass tube, and caused it to vibrate by the fric- 

 tion of a moist cloth attached to a little mechanism set in mo- 

 tion by a spring for thirty hours, when nearly the whole of 

 the styrole become solid : when the solid mass was again di- 

 stilled, liquid styrole was obtained. The tube containing the 

 substance unfortunately broke just as I was about to repeat the 

 experiment, but I hope to be able to repeat it in a short time. 



Dublin, August 12, 1845. 



XXXIX. On Brown Iron Ore. % Lieut.-Col. P.I. Yorke*. 

 QOME observations having led me to believe that the ana- 

 ^ lysis generally assigned in systems of mineralogy to the 

 crystallized hydro-oxide of iron really belonged to another 

 substance, I undertook the following experiments to clear up 

 the point. 



• Communicated by the Chemical Society; having been read March 17, 

 1845. 



