Word Bedolah, or Bedolach. 247 



the world called Jambudirp), whose falling fruit serves as food 

 for the serpent (naga), who inhabits the lake. We observe 

 here, as in Genesis, four rivers take their source from a reser- 

 voir, only that in Genesis the direction of the course of each of 

 them is not described. 



I therefore conclude, that Bedola, or Bedolach, has, perhaps, 

 a twofold meaning : that, in Genesis, chap, ii., it most pro- 

 bably signifies lapis lazuli; and that, in Numbers, chap, xi., 

 it may mean the well-known gum with which manna is supposed 

 to be compared. 



On a Prismatic Structure in Sandstone induced by artificial 

 Heat; and on certain Prismatic Rocks found in Nature, in- 

 cluding the Columnar Sandstone of Dunbar. By J. Mac 

 Culloch. 



The connexion which may be inferred, between the artificial 

 change in sandstone, that forms the subject of one part of this 

 paper, and that natural arrangement of the same kind which 

 occurs in certain rocks, has induced me to describe the whole 

 in one memoir. I will not pretend to pronounce on the degree 

 of probability that exists respecting this presumed connexion ; 

 but it is certainly such as to warrant a further repetition of 

 similar experiments, and a further examination of analogous 

 phenomena occurring in nature. However unfounded that 

 supposed connexion may be proved, the results of the artifi- 

 cial process are intimately connected with so many analogous 

 facts occurring in other solid substances, that it must be con- 

 sidered as only one example of a most important general law, 

 the effects of which have scarcely yet been examined, and 

 which opens a wide field of experiment to those whom leisure 

 and opportunity may tempt to investigate it. If, by such 

 experiments, that law may he ultimately shewn to have an 

 extensive operation, such is its nature, that its action cannot 

 be confined to the narrow extent of our furnaces and crucibles, 

 That which regulates the affinities of the substances in these 

 limited operations, has regulated all the chemistry of nature ; 

 and the globe itself is only ruled by those powers which deter- 

 mine the combinations of the least of its atoms. 



