Dr Daubeny on Volcanos. 291 



marked, that if the rope, whether wet or dry, does not touch 

 the ground, which is generally the case, the fulminating matter, 

 after it has reached the knot at its lower end, may, to a great 

 extent, reascend it, may again reach the summit of the steeple, 

 and then be dissipated in space. When this is considered, it 

 will be seen, that we are not to conclude that because no da- 

 mage has been done in the interior of a belfry, therefore the 

 ringers would not have been killed. 



Reply to Professor BiscJiofs Objections to the Chemical Theory 

 of Volcanos. By Charles Daubeny, M. D., F. R. S., 

 Professor of Chemistry and of Botany, Oxford. (Com- 

 municated by the Author.) 



Having already stated in a former Number* of your Journal, 

 as well as in other publications,-[- the grounds on which I have 

 long considered Davy's Theory, with such modifications as I 

 have myself ventured to introduce in it, as affording the best, 

 if not the only adequate explanation of the phenomena present- 

 ed, during the different phases of volcanic action, I feel some 

 reluctance in trespassing upon your pages by any further dis- 

 cussion of what may appear to you a trite and hackneyed sub- 

 ject. Nevertheless, on rising from the perusal of the last Num- 

 ber of your periodical, I could not but feel, that when a che- 

 mist so distinguished for his researches in this class of pheno- 

 mena as Professor Bischof of Bonn, professes to lay down as 

 the result of his inquiries into the " Natural History of Vol- 

 canos and Earthquakes,^' that the hypothesis in question is un- 

 tenable, it behoves me, either by abandoning my preconceived 

 views, to acknowledge the justice of his arguments, or to take 



add another, as these facts are tlie best means of curing the ringers of their 

 hazardous folly. On the 31st of March 1768, the lightning having descended 

 upon the steeple of Chabeuil, near Valence in Dauphiny, killed two young 

 men who were engaged in pulling the rope together, and severely wounded 

 nine others w^ho were standing near them. 



* No. for October 1832. 



t Encyclp. Metrop. article, Volcanic Geology. 



