72 Royal Society. 
to assist by every expedient which ingenuity can devise in 
the attainment of the desired object.’” Some of the facts 
stated by Mr, Adams respecting the power of habit, tend 
to develop the principles of human action, and illustrate 
tbe theory of mind; they are worthy of being recorded, 
with this view, among those lately promulgated by Professor 
Stewart and My, Wardrop in their historical accounts ofa 
blind boy. 
Dr. Smith and Mr. Sowerby haye determined to finish 
their celebrated work, ‘* The English Botany,” by a general 
Index to the xxxvi volumes, which will be completed on 
the first of January 1814. [tis intended to arrange the names 
of the plants contained in that work, which wil] amount 
to nearly 2600, in one part alphabetically, and in another 
part according to the Linnean system, with such improve- 
ments as have been received since its publication. When 
English Botany is completed, Mr. Sowerby hopes to be 
able to comply with the wishes of his numerous friends in 
publishing his «* Mincral Conchology” every month. The 
British and Exotic Mineralogy will in all probability be 
finished in the course of the next year. 
XIV. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ROYAL SOCIETY, 
July ‘Spal es Earl of Morton, Vice-president, in the 
Chair. Sir H. Davy, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, de- 
tails several new experiments which he has made on the 
detonating oil, which he lately discovered. It appears, ac- 
cording to Sir H’s experiments, to consist of Q} chlorine — 
and 9 azote, or one volume of azote abd fuur volumes of 
chlorine, This, Sir H, candidly acknowledges, is an ex- 
ample of the imadequacy of theory respecting definite pro- 
portions, as the particles of different substances in this case 
ppite not in the generally received proportions of 1 to 2, 
2103, or 3to4, butdtol. The specific gravity of this 
compound is 635, water being taken as 1000; or by volume, 
in the proportion of 119 to 30. Sir H. wore a cap with a 
glass front, while operating on this explosive compound, tn 
order to protect his cyes; yet still the operations were dan- 
gerous, as yery small quantuitics of it explode with great 
violence, . 
In this paper the author describes some new properties of 
this extraordinary substance; and the general series of facts 
confirms 
