394 Royal Society. 



Kinds of Wine and some other Liquors. By XVilliaixs 

 Thomas Brande, Esq. F.R.S. — 18. Account of a Litholo- 

 gical Survey of Schehaliien, made in order to deterniiiu' the 

 specific Gravity of the Rocks which compose that Mountain. 

 By John Playfair, Esq. F.R S. — 19. Onservations and Ex- 

 periments on Vision. By Wilham Charles Wells, M.D. 

 F.R.S. 

 ■ ' » 



LXXII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



Thursday, Nov, 7. 1 his evening the Royal Society met 

 after the long vacation, the right hon. President in the chair. 

 A mathematical paper hy Mr. Ivory was laiti before tlu' So- 

 ciety, detecting some errors in Laplace's Mccaniqiic Celeste 

 on spheroids. The introduction only of this paper was of 

 2. nature to be read, in which the author acknowl'.'diied 

 the talents and learning of the French mathematician, and 

 extenuated the mistake he was about to dcnionstraie by 

 considering the immense extent of the work whicli con- 

 tained it. 



Nov. 14. On this evening another paper on spheroids, 

 by Mr. Ivory, was also laid before the Society, and a part 

 of its contents read. In this the author proposed a new- 

 theory of spheroids, after having examined that of Newton 

 and of Laplace; the latter he refuted in the preceding paper, 

 and the former he showed was founded on the assumed 

 position that the earth was once an entire fluid mass : but 

 had that been the case, its present appearance must have 

 indicated that the fluid matter followed the laws of specific 

 gravity ; which is not the fact. He then proceeded to show 

 what must be the nature of a spheroid circumstanced as 

 our globe is, and consisting of land and water. 



Nov. 21. A part of a paper by Mr. Glenie, on the 

 quadrature of the circle, was read, in which the author con- 

 ceives that he has discovered a method of approximating to 

 a solution of that long discussed problem with sufficient 

 accuracy. 



The introduction to an experimental inquiry into the na- 

 ture, formation, and constituent parts of the blood, by Mr. 

 Brande, was read. The author began with noticing the 

 difficulties and inaccuracy of all our methods of analysing 

 animal matter; examined the process adopted by Fourcroy 

 and Vauquelin ; and was hence led to detect many ot their 

 errors, and particularly their opinion, which has now be- 

 come 



