Scientific Intelligence — Meteorology and Geology. 423 



Treatise on Geology, in Lardner's Encyclopsedia. In the coal- 

 measures near Newcastle, the common shale loses its ordinary hori- 

 zontal lamination near the vertical sides of a basaltic dyke, and over 

 a width of a few yards, it presents numerous vertical divisional planes 

 parallel to the faces of the dyke, not more than half an inch apart, 

 and analogous to the cleavage planes of slate. lie likewise mentions 

 that a cleavage structure occurs parallel to the great Craven fault. 

 Professor Philips views the cleavage of slate as a metamorphic struc- 

 ture, produced by heat, exerted either primarily, or through the 

 agency of electricity, in superinducing a new polarity in the particles 

 of the rocky mass. 



The main object of Professor Rogers is to state the general fact 

 of the approximate parallelism of the cleavage dip, and the anti- 

 clinal and synclinal planes of the closely folded strata ; and also to 

 point out the general law of their parallelism to the planes of maxi- 

 mum heat. — Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the As- 

 sociation of American Gi^ologists and Naturalists, April 1845, 

 p. 49. 



3. Earthquake in Tuscany ^ Marseilles, X^th August. — By the 

 Virgile, just arrived from Naples and the Italian coast, we learn, that 

 on Friday, the 14th instant, a most violent earthquake was felt in 

 Tuscany. The church of St Michel, at Pisa, was greatly shaken ; in 

 the country, the earth opened at various places, and vomited forth 

 muddy and boiling water. At Leghorn, the bells in the different 

 church steeples rang of their own accord. The disastrous effects are 

 not so considerable in the town as in the neighbouring villages, where 

 many of the houses were thrown down, and the frightened inhabitants 

 flew to the open fields. The Grand Duke, informed of the disaster, 

 immediately ordered provisions of every description to be sent to the 

 unfortunate sufferers. The earthquake was first felt about one o'clock 

 in the afternoon of Friday the 14th instant. The village of Orciana, 

 about 20 miles from Leghorn, has suffered considerably. Of 120 houses, 

 only 2 remain standing; 59 persons were killed, and 65 wounded. 

 Most of the houses at Leghorn have large cracks in the walls. The 

 flags of the pavement were raised, but closed again immediately. The 

 event caused great anxiety at Leghorn, and the people took the pre- 

 caution of sleeping in the fields outside the town. At Pisa, the church 

 of St Michel was thrown down. An hour previously, the church was 

 crowded, and the door was scarcely closed when the roof fell in. The 

 shock lasted for three seconds, and was followed by a muffled and awful 

 sound, like the report of a distant cannon, and people staggered in 

 the streets. A letter from Leghorn, of the 17th, states : — *' Our 

 town has just been thrown into great alarm by an earthquake. On 

 the 14th, at 10 minutes to 1 p.m., the first shock was felt, preceded 

 by a rumbling noise ; the shock lasted 7 or 8 seconds ; the oscilla- 

 tions seemed to be at first perpendicular, as if the ground was raised 

 in a direction north-east to north-west. The inclination of the houses 



