Proceedings of the Wernerian Society. 209 



Irora that island. Pladda Island Light, in charts, is placed as IC N. of Ailsa 

 Craig ; whereas its true distance is only 10' 20". These last are serious errors 

 at the entrance of so important a river as the Clyde. 



Some years ago Dr Macculloch was employed, at the public expense, to 

 make a Geological Survey of Scotland, a circumstance utterly unknown to 

 any public body in Scotland, until the Parliamentary papers shewed that he 

 had drawn from the Treasury upwards of L. 7000 for that service. But the 

 only fruit of this expenditure is the publication of his posthumous Geological 

 Map, on which unfortunately little reliance can be placed for local details, as 

 a trigonometrical survey should have preceded any attempt to represent the 

 position of the rocks and mineral productions by a coloured map. Of this 

 truth Dr Macculloch appears to have become sensible, when he advanced 

 the imperfection of our host maps as an excuse for his delay in preparing the 

 materials he had collected. 



Your Memorialists do not consider it necessary to enter into any detailed 

 observations on this occasion on the numerous and important advantages 

 which must result to navigation, commerce, and agriculture, or the scientific 

 interest which would arise from the completion of the Trigonometrical Sur- 

 vey of Scotland ; as your Memorialists have no doubt that these are obvious 

 to your Lordships ; and they have the fullest confidence in the desire of his 

 Alajesty's Government to extend the benefits of accurate geographical know- 

 ledge to all parts of his Majesty's dominions. 



Signed in name of the Society, 



R,. Jameson, President. 



University, Edinburgh, 26th April 1837. 



The following Minute of Council was also read : — " The meeting 

 directed that 100 copies of the Memorial be printed ; that a fair 

 copy be written out for the Treasury, to be signed by the Presi- 

 dent in name of the Society, and transmitted through a Member of 

 Parliament : and that afterwards, a printed copy be transmitted to 

 each of the Lords Commissioners, to the Speaker of the House of 

 Commons, and to each of the Scotch Members of Parliament," &c 

 Mr Torrie, Assistant Secretary, read a continuation of Captain 

 Mackenzie's account of his overland journey from India, particu- 

 larly describing the present statistics of Mocha. Also an account 

 of a visit, last summer, to the Jardin, near Chamouni, with a list 

 of alpine plants. Mr Kemp then exhibited some interesting ex- 

 periments with potassium, producing readily the metallic bases 

 of various earths, and shewing bow the sudden inflammation of 

 the potassium, on coming in contact with water, might be ren- 

 dered useful in affording an instantaneous though transient light io 

 a dark night at sea. 



The Society adjourned till November next. 



• VOL. XXIV. NO. XLVII.— JANUARY 1838. O 



