60 Kirwanian Society of Dublin. 



In the bed of the Clyde, tn the eastward of Tinto, amyg- 

 daloid appears, havins; nodules oF calcedony coated with 

 green earth ; also calcspar, ami portions of steatite. — To- 

 wards the north, the conglomerate forming the hase of 

 I'into passes into the sandstone of which the whole in- 

 ferior districts of Lanarkshire are composed. It is to the 

 waste of this rock that we owe the splendid scenery of 

 Cora Linn, and the other celebrated falls of the Clyde, 

 which exhibits in its course so maiiy charms of nature, 

 and may indeed be said to carry along with it beauty and 

 fertility. 



At the same meeting, the Secretary communicated a very- 

 curious Meieorolojical Journal kept by Governor G»aham 

 during his residence in Hudson's Bay. 



KIUWANIAN SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



The proper business of the Society had been suspended 

 in the earlv part of the month, on account of the illness 

 and death of the late Mr. Kirwan, whose relation to the 

 Society was of so particular and interesting a nature. 



June 17. 1 he reading of Mr. Donovan's paper was con- 

 tinued. The next hypothesis which the author examined 

 was that given in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which pro- 

 fesses to explain the phajnoniena of electricity " from the 

 known laws bv which other fluids are observed to act upon 

 one another." It was first argued that the property of 

 perfect mobility, although assumed, was nevertheless in- 

 compatible with the hypothesis: and some observaiions 

 were tnade on the supposed identity of electricity, light, 

 and elen)eiitary fire. Tlic principle which assumes the 

 pressure and equilibrium of tlie electric fluid was next ex- 

 amined. The causes of pressure and equilibria were con- 

 sidered : it was shown, that in the hypothesis, the properties 

 necessary for producing these effects, far from being im- 

 plied, are even denied to belong to the electric matter. 

 Some phaenomoua of the transit of electricity through 

 vacua, which the hypothesis professes to explain, were 

 shown to be not the less involved in difficulty, from the 

 unsupported nature and insufficient application of this sup- 

 posed pressure. The evidence for the existence of vibra- 

 tions was then questioned, and conceived to he invalid ; a 

 particular direction of them was argued to be inconceivable, 

 from the very delinition ofl'ered of a vibration. The dif- 

 ference between positive and negative electricity, as laid 

 down in the hypothesis, was shown to exist in the mode 



of 



