118 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 
the same time, made the depositories of the chemical affinities 
of the chlorine and hydrogen respectively. Mr. G. proposed to 
modify this theory so far as to abandon the idea of electricities 
being actually possessed by these bodies, and to refer the phe- 
nomena at once to the proper chemical affinities of these bodies. 
He assigned similarly polar molecules to the exciting fluid and 
metals ; and taking hydrochloric acid as a type of exciting fluids, 
he gave to each molecule a pole, having an affinity resembling 
- that of chlorine, or chlorous affinity,—of negative electricity ; and 
another pole, having’an affinity resembling that of zinc and hy- 
drogen, or zincous affinity, instead of positive electricity. He 
pursued the subject to a considerable length, illustrating his views 
by means of diagrams. 
Dr. George Wilson gave an experimental demonstration of the 
certain existence of haloid salts in solution. All previous attempts 
to decide the question whether haloid salts do or do not decom- | 
pose water, when dissolved in it, have afforded no certain results. , 
The object of this paper is to show, that although the inquiry 
had long been abandoned as hopeless, a demonstration can 
given of the persistent haloid condition of the dissolved haloid 
salts of the electro-negative metals. This the author appears to 
have satisfactorily demonstrated. It is mentioned as an inciden- ~~ 
tal conclusion from the experiments recorded, that they aflord @ 
direct proof of the quasi-metallic character of hydrogen, so much 
insisted on by the advocates of the binary theory of salts; and 
that they supplied ‘more direct evidence than any previous trials 
regarding this, since they not only demonstrate hydrogen to have 
the power of displacing many metals, but at the same time assigt 
to it, as its proper place in its metallic character, a position inte!- 
mediate between the electro-positive and electro-negative metals. 
A paper was offered by Dr. 8. Brown on the Crystallization of 
Carburets ; having for its object to lay down a new form of the 
maxim of crystallization, viz. that when particles of a solid body 
are slowly evolved from ‘the decomposition of a substance of 
which it, or its elements, are chemical constituents, they cohere 
in crystal, and that independently both of the fusion (or solution) 
of the body crystallized, and of the presence of any fluid medium 
of molecular action whatsoever. Dr. B. had obtained small ery> 
tals, colorless and intensely hard, of the carburets of iron, coppe!s 
zine, lead, &e. : 
Es 
mee 
