191 



The autlior offers this coraposition as a writing-ink, to be used 

 on paper, for the drawing out of bills, deeds, wills, 'or wherever it 

 is important to prevent the alteration of sums or signatures, as well 

 as for handing down to posterity public records, in a less perishable 

 material than common ink. He concluded his paper by stating, 

 that should it be found to present an obstacle to the commission of 

 crime — should it, even in a single instance, prevent the perpetration 

 of an offence so injurious to society as the falsification of a public 

 or a private document, the author will rejoice in the publication of 

 his discovery, and consider that his labour has not been in vain. 



2. Abstract of first part of Memoir on the Mid-Lothian and 

 East Lothian Coal Districts. By David Milne, Esq. 



The author commenced his communication by stating, that he 

 should divide his memoir into two parts, the first being devoted to 

 a mere narrative oi facts, the second to explanations of these facts. 



In describing the geological features of the district, he noticed 

 first the stratified or rudimentary rocks, and next the unstratijied 

 rocks. 



The STRATIFIED cousist of sandstone, shales, limestones, coal, 

 and clays ; which rocks seemed severally to abound or prevail, in 

 the order now stated. 



These stratified rocks overspread the district from Portobello to 

 Gladsmuir, in an east and west direction ; and from the Firth of 

 Forth to the Lammermoor Hills, in a north and south direction. 

 Within these limits there are two basins, — the basin of the Esks, 

 and the basin of the Tyne ; and which basins are divided by the 

 ridge or high ground that runs from Prestonpans (on the shore of 

 the Firth) by Tranent, Falside, Carberry, and the Roman Camp. 



The Esk basin contains between sixty and seventy coal-seams, 

 exceeding one foot in thickness. The Tyne basin contains not 

 more than ten or twelve, being those which appertain to the lower 

 part of the deposit. Tlie vertical depth of the Esk basin in its 

 trough, — or, in other words, the thickness of the deposits composing 

 it, is between 1000 and 1050 fathoms; but this thickness diminishes 

 rapidly to the south, arising chiefly from the coal-seams and sand- 

 stone strata thinning away in that direction ; and which diminution 

 is compensated in but a trifling degree, by the increased thickness 

 of the limestone in the same direction. 



The Tyne basin comprehends only the deposits lying below the 

 Great Seam of coal, and the entire thickness of these, is greatly less 



