450 Prof, Buck/and on the Structure of the Alps, [June, 



and that it rent asunder the bt^el plate at the top of the appa^ 

 ratus without firing the gunpowder at the bottom. However, as 

 he suggested the trial of* different proportions of the fuhiiinating 

 mercury with sulphur and charcoal, and that too with the know- 

 ledge of mixtures of these three ingredients having been used in 

 several secret experiments some time ago performed in Pans, I 

 have repeated my experiments with Howard's fulminating mer- 

 cury weakened with the above two inflammables. I first tried to 

 fire gunpowder with it, through flannel, at the bottom of the 

 apparatus (Plate III. fig. 1), p. 89, when I found that it not only 

 did not inflame the gunpowder, but failed completely in tearing, 

 or even moving, the paper at the bottom of the tube. 1 next 

 tried the effect of exploding the mixture at the top, when the 

 tube presented no resistance at all to any flame that might pass 

 along, but I found that no light appeared at the bottom, although 

 I performed the whole in a dark situation. I then shortened 

 the tube, but still found that there was no flame sent out at the 

 end of it. 



In some of these experiments, equal parts of Howard's fulmi- 

 nating mercury, sulphur, and charcoal, were used ; in others, 

 two parts of the mercury were taken to one part of each of the 

 rest ; and in others again the proportions were still further 

 varied. I remain, yours respectfully, 



John Deuchak^ 



Article IX. 



Notice of a Paper (aid before the Geological Society on the Struo 

 tare of the Alps and adjoining Parts oj' the Continent, and their 

 Relation to the Secondary and Transition Rocks of England, 

 By the Rev. W. Buckland, Professor of Mineralogy and Geo- 

 logy in the University of Oxford, FRS. FLS. MGS. &c. 



The detail of the phaenomena of which I have endeavoured to 

 include a brief summary in this prospective notice, will form the 

 subject of a future and more extensive communication to the 

 Geological Society. My immediate object is to present an 

 abstract of the leading points of resemblance between the rocks 

 of the Alps, and those which occur in our own country. 



Of the primitive alpine rocks that form the central axis of this 

 most elevated and most important mountain chain in Europe, I 

 have only to observe that they present such an identity of sub- 

 stance and circumstances with the primitive rocks of other parts 

 of the world, that any detailed account of them will be unne- 

 cessary. 



But with regard to the transition and secondary strata that 



