Cambridge Philosophical Societi/, 395 



March 20. — Mr. Atherston on the Essential of poetry. 



March 27.— Mr. Faraday on the manufacture of pens from quills 

 and steel. 



April 3.— Dr. Ritchie : a comparative view of the theories of elec- 

 tricity. 



April 10. — Dr. Lardner on Halley's comet. 



CAMBRIDGE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, LENT TERM, 183.5. 



A meeting of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge was held on 

 Monday evening, March 2, Professor Airy, Vice-President, in the Chair. 

 Various presents of books and other objects were laid before the Society. 

 A Memoir, by the llev. R. Murphy, of Caius College, was read, con- 

 taining the conclusion of his Researches on the Inverse Calculus of 

 Definite Integrals ; also a Memoir by R. Stevenson, Esq., of Trinity 

 College, on the solution of some problems connected with the theory 

 of straight lines and planes, by a new and symmetrical method of 

 coordination. A communication was likewise made by W. Hopkins, 

 Esq., on Physical Geology, in which he showed, on mechanical prin- 

 ciples, that forces of elevation, acting on extended masses of nearly 

 horizontal strata, would necessarily produce a double system of 

 fissures, one in the direction of the beds, the other at right angles to 

 that direction. In a discussion which took place afterwards. Prof. 

 Sedgwick pointed out several districts which illustrated the truth of 

 Mr. Hopkins's theory, viz. Flintshire, Derbyshire, the mining districts 

 of Cumberland, &c. 



March 1 6. — The Rev. Prof. Clark, V.P. in the Chair. A paper was 

 read i»y Mr. W. W. Fisher, of Downing College, (illustrated by co- 

 loured drawings,) on the nature, structure, and changes of Tubercles. 

 The conclusion at which the author arrived was, that tubercles are 

 organized or organizable products, that they consist, in general, in an 

 alteration of the structure of the organ in which they occur ; and that 

 the changes which they undergo are essentially due to inherent vital 

 action, the process of softening being frequently marked by the de- 

 velopment of a new order of vessels in the diseased structure. 



Afterwards Mr. Willis gave an account of his views respecting the 

 progress of Gothic architecture, especially with referencc'to the for- 

 mation of tracery. He noticed that Romanesque architecture differed 

 from classical in the employment of compound arches, (instead of ar- 

 chitraves,) several arches being placed under each other so as to form 

 successive orders of openings. As a next step, the sides of these 

 arches are decorated with shafts; but these are difl^erent in the North 

 and South of Europe. In the former (as in Norman architecture) the 

 shafts replace the edges of the oj)enings, and are called edge shafts ; 

 in Italian Romanesque the shafts are placed in the square recesses of 

 the sides of the openings, and are nook shafts. When the successive 

 orders of openings become of different forms, (as two arches under one, 

 or trefoils under simple arches,) there is an approximation to tracery; 

 and when the mouldings which bound the openings form bars, we have 

 actual tracery. Hence the mullions and bars have mouldings which 

 follow a series of subordination corresponding to the orders of open- 

 ly E 2 



