Geological Socreiy. 23 7 



certain freshness of mind which would enable them to 

 discharge with greater alacrity the duties of active and so- 

 cial life. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



March 6. — Sir George Clerk, Bart. M.P. was elected an 

 ordinary member of the Society: and several presents of 

 books were announced. 



An additional notice by Arthur Aikin, Esq. Sec. Geo. 

 Soc. respecting a green waxy substance found in the alluvial 

 soil near Stockport, was read. 



The purport of this notice was to mention the discovery 

 of a similar substance at the foot of the hill of Menil 

 Montant near Paris, bv M. Patrin. It there occurs in al- 

 luvial sand accompanied by fresh- water shells. 



A communication addressed to the Secretary by the 

 Hon. Henry Grey Bennet, M.P. respecting a whin dyke in 

 Northumberland, was read. 



The dyke here described is best seen at Beadnel-Bay, 

 where it forms a kind of pier about 27 feet wide and 300 

 yards long. It rises in a perpendicular position through 

 several beds of stratified rocks, without occasioning any 

 change in their dip or direction. But the qualities of the 

 different strata where they are in contact with the dyke, 

 diff'er very notably from those exhibited by the same strata 

 at a little distance from the dyke. The limestone in par- 

 ticular of both the beds that are cut through, is harder, 

 more granular and sparry in the vicinity of the dyke, and is, 

 farther, incapable ot' being burnt into good lime. 



The reading of Mr. Phillips's, paper on the native oxide 

 of tin of Cornwall, was continued. 



Before entering into the crystallographlcal history of this 

 substance, Mr. P. makes some remarks on the kind of cry- 

 stals best adapted for gonioiTielrical researches, and states 

 bis reasons for preferring the more minute crystals to the 

 larger ones, and the reflecting gonionK-ter of Dr. Wollas- 

 ton to that in coiTmion use. He then proceeds to state the 

 means by which he succeeded in obtaining fractures exhi- 

 biting the structure of the crystal ; from which it apjiears 

 that Its primitive form is that of an octaliedron composed 

 of two pyramids united by their bases which are square, 

 and that this is further divisible through both its diagonals 

 into irregular tetrahedrons. 



March 20.— William Blake, Esq. F.R.S. and the Right 

 Hon. Lord Compton .were elected ordinary nuinbcrs^of 



the 



