380 Scientific Intelligence, Sfc. 



merate of Durdham clown. They were found in the magnesian 

 conglomerate which rests upon the lime-stone, and must have been 

 deposited upon the spot upon which they were found, without vio- 

 lent action ; they are often injected with rocky paste. The struc- 

 ture of their vertebrae resembles strongly that of the crocodile. 



Mr, Hopkins submitted his views on the phenomena of eleva- 

 tion. In reference to the mineral veins of Derbyshire, he had 

 ascertained, that the direction of the axis of dislocation which had 

 caused the fissure was true north and south, while that of the 

 structure of the rocks was inagnetic north and south ; hence, shewing 

 the connexion between magnetism and the theory of mineral veins. 



Thursday, 26th August. — The Ancient City of Memphis. — 

 The Marquis Spinetto read a paper, entitled *' a report of the 

 attempts made to ascertain the latitude of the ancient city of 

 Memphis." The details of this communication are of importance to 

 geographers, as tending to elucidate a point on which Pocock, Shaw, 

 Bruce, and other travellers, have differed. The question may now 

 be considered to be set at rest, it having been clearly ascertained 

 that it was in the present bed of the Nile, in latitude 29° 46' North, 

 and longitude 31° 30 East from Greenwich. 



The Chairman congratulated the Section on having heard these 

 satisfactory details, and observed that the same process which had 

 buried the ancient city of Memphis in the bed of the Nile — an accu- 

 mulation of mud and drifted Lybian sands, in consequence of the demo- 

 lition of the dykes, which once turned aside the water — had already 

 sunk the beautiful fossil beds of Purton beneath the Severn. 



Dr. Buckland stated that he had received engravings, prepared 

 under the direction of M. Agassiz, of some of the splendid fossils in 

 the Bristol Institution : and he also placed upon the table a copy of 

 his own work on Geology, forming one of the Bridgewater Treatises. 



The next paper was on the Change in the Chemical Character 

 of Minerals Induced hy Galvanism. — Mr. Fox mentioned the 

 fact, long known to miners, of metalliferous veins intersecting 

 different rocks containing ore in some of these rocks, and being 

 nearly barren or entirely so in others. This circumstance suggested 

 the idea of some definite cause ; and his experiments on the electrical 

 magnetic condition of metalliferous veins, and also on the electric 

 conditions of various ores to each other, seem to have supplied an 

 answer, inasmuch, as it was thus proved that electro-magnetism was 

 in a state of great activity under the earth's surface, and that it was 

 independent of mere local action between the plates of copper and 

 the ore with which they were in contact, by the occasional substitu- 

 tion of plates of zinc for those of copper, producing no change in the 

 direction of the voltaic currents. He also referred to other experi- 

 ments, in which two different varieties of copper ore, with water 

 taken from the same n>ine, as the only exciting fluid, produced con- 

 siderable voltaic action. The various kinds of saline matter which 

 he had detected in water taken from different mines, and also taken 

 from parts of the same mine, seemed to indicate another probable 

 source of electricity ; for can it now be doubted, that rocks impreg- 

 nated with or holding in their minute lissures different kinds of 



