December i^th, ipop.] PROCEEDINGS. ix 



Ordinary Meeting, December 14th, igog. 



Mr. Francis Jones, M.Sc, F.R.S.E., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of 

 the books upon the table. 



The President made reference to the loss the Society had 

 sustained by the deaths of Mr. A. J. S. Bles and Dr. Ludwig 

 Mond, F.R.S. Dr. Mond had been a member from 1881 and 

 Mr. Bles from 1901. 



Dr. H. Stansfield exhibited a lantern slide of a photograph 

 of lightning flashes. The photograph was taken in Bruges, with 

 a small camera held in the hand, during an August thunder- 

 storm in which the display of lightning took place after dark. 

 The principal photograph represented a vertical flash, a fainter 

 image produced by two inclined flashes being superposed upon 

 it. One of the two inclined flashes was recorded on the plate 

 by a double line, indicating that two discharges, separated by an 

 interval of time during which the camera moved appreciably, 

 had followed the same path. 



Mr. Francis Nicholson, F.Z.S., communicated the follow- 

 ing biographical details concerning the French chemist, Ber- 

 thollet :— 



Claude Louis Berthollet, a chemist who made researches 

 in both theoretical and applied chemistry, was born gth November, 

 1748. In 1790 he was already distinguished enough to be 

 elected an Hon. Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society 

 of Manchester. He held official scientific posts under the French 

 Government, and in 1798, together with Monge, the mathema- 

 tician, and other scientific men, he accompanied the French 

 expedition to Egypt. Berthollet also accompanied the army up 

 the Nile, and was present at the battle of Chebreis. On this 

 occasion he is said to have filled his pockets with stones, so 

 that if he was killed, and the boats sank, he would remain below 

 water. He became a leading member of the Institute of Egypt, 

 which was founded during the French expedition of 1798, the 



