122 Braconnot on Organic Matter in Primitive Bocks. 



1839. 

 Mar. 20. (3^ a.m.) Glengarry (Inverncss-sliire), doors lifted ofF latches. 

 Boat on canal felt sliock, and people in it heard noise rever- 

 berated among hills. Shock felt at Kingussie between 2 and 



3 A.M. 



May 24. At 2 a.m. two shocks at Crieff, each of which lasted 2", accom- 

 panied by subterranean noise of much longer duration. The 

 weather next day soft. 



June 11. Shock felt north of Manchester. 



Sept. 1. On Sunday morning at 1 a.m. at Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, 



and other places in South Wales, Shrewsbury. East of 



Bristol, beds rocked, and crockery thrown down, and doors 



opened. 



{Mr GilfiUan's letter j with the rest of this article containing the inferences 



deduced from the preceding Register, will be given in the next Number.) 



Braconnot on Organic Matter in Primitive Bocks^ and Br&ng- 

 niart on the Conversion of the Felspar of Primitive Bocks 

 into Porcelain Clay, 



1. — Braconnot on Organic Matter in Primitive Bocks. 

 Braconnot has submitted to dry distillation in porcelain re- 

 torts, various rocks, which plainly belong to the primitive for- 

 mation, and has obtained sometimes an acid, and very often 

 an ammoniacal water, with a small quantity of combustible 

 matter, whence he draws the conclusion that these rocks were 

 formed in a water in which animals lived, whose remains are 

 the cause of tlie combustible and ammoniacal products. The 

 result of these experiments would in this way therefore be 

 completely in opposition to the Plutonian theory, and would 

 be an additional proof for the Neptunian. If we follow up 

 with attention the breaking up of a solid rock, we perceive 

 that the newly-uncovered surface of the broken-up mass is 

 always moist, and after it has been for a time exposed to the 

 air, and thus been dried, it acquires another aspect. We 

 know that meteoric water, after it has passed through a 

 thinner or thicker bed of decayed organic matter with which 

 the surface is covered, percolates deeply into the rock, and 

 that it is constantly being pumped out of our mines. We find 

 that this water not only percolates through the fissures, but 

 that it also penetrates the mass of the rock ; can we then be 

 surprised that so much of the organic matter carried from the 

 surface in the course of thousands of years is collected, as to 

 be noticeable when the ' rocks are exposed to the process of 

 dry distillation ? Every mica contains a little water ; all 



