On the Anticlinal Line of the London and Hampshire Basins. 471 



soluble in alcohol, and tlie solution on evaporation leaves a dark 

 resinous mass. When subjected to dry distillation, it leaves a 

 bulky charcoal, while an exceedingly disgusting oil distils. 



The acid fluid which has been separated from this substance 

 by filtration, when supersaturated by an alkali, evolves the odour 

 of the bases of the picoline series. These pyrrol bases I conceive, 

 therefore, to be substances formed by the coupling of the picoline 

 series with some substance which yields the red matter to which 

 I have alluded. I have not as yet, however, pursued the inves- 

 tigation of these bases, but shall communicate the result of their 

 examination in a future paper. 



The Non-hasic Constituents of Bone-Oil. 



, I have as yet directed very little attention to this branch of 

 the subject. I have found, however, that when the most volatile 

 part of the oil, after separation of the bases, is repeatedly rec- 

 tified, it improves in odour, and at length there is obtained a 

 substance which, when acted upon by nitric acid, and then by 

 sulphide of ammonium, gives the reaction of aniline, — indicative 

 of the presence of benzine in the oil. It is probable, therefore, 

 that this series of homologous carbohydrogens forms a part of 

 the oil, but not the whole of it, for I have found that when the 

 oil is boiled for some time with potash, ammonia is evolved, and 

 on supersaturating the potash solution with sulphuric acid, the 

 odour of butyric acid, or at all events of one of the fatty acids, 

 becomes apparent ; from which pha^nomena I draw the conclusion 

 that it also contains the nitriles of these acids. 



LXX. Postscript to Mr. P. J. Martin's Paper On the Anti- 

 clinal Line of the London and Hampshire Basins. 



SINCE the publication of the greater part of this memoir, I 

 have read Mr. Prestwich's exposition of the range of the arena- 

 ceous and other water-bearing strata round London j and of their 

 probable capacity for the reception and transmission of a supply 

 of water to the metropolis, and especially of their aptitude for 

 giving that supply by means of Artesian wells*. 



A small part only of the area comprised in Mr. PrestwicVs 

 review belongs to that which I have made the subject of my 

 particular research ; although every part of it, of course, is com- 

 prehended in the range of the surface-changes brought about by 

 the convulsion which produced the great synclinal called the 

 London basin. 



After the chalk, the most important member in this order of 

 * A Geologic^^l Inquiry, &c, London, 1851. 



