196 Royal Society. 



the strength, depending as it does on the sectional area, must, 

 in similar masses, vary as the square of any side. And in the 

 torsion strain we may readily detect the like general principle, 

 that, other things equal, the resistances to fracture bear a con- 

 stant ratio to the squares of the dimensions. 



Not so however with the powers tending to the disruption 

 of matter. The effects of gravity, centrifugal force, and all 

 agencies antagonistic to cohesive attraction, vary as the mass, 

 that is, as the cubes of the dimensions. 



However great, therefore, in a given portion of matter, may 

 be the excess of the form-preserving force over the form- 

 destroying force, it is clear that, if during augmentation of 

 bulk the form-preserving force increases only as the squares 

 of the dimensions, whilst the form-destroying force increases 

 as their cubes, the first must in time be overtaken and exceeded 

 by the last; and when this occurs, the matter will be fractured 

 and re-arranged in obedience to the form-destroying force. 



Viewed by the light of this principle, the fact that the earth 

 is an oblate spheroid does not seem to afford any support to 

 the hypothesis of original fluidity as commonly understood. 

 We must consider that, in respect of its obedience to the geo- 

 dynamic laws, the earth is fluid now and must always remain 

 so ; for the most tenacious substance with which we are ac- 

 quainted, when subjected to the same forces that are acting 

 upon the earth's crust, would exceed the limit of self-support 

 determined by the above law, before it attained ,,^^'^_,^ th of 

 the earth's bulk. 



Reference to a table of the resistances of various substances 

 to a crushing force will render this manifest. 



London, Jan. 184/. 



XXXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from p. 128.] 

 Anniversary Meeting, November 30, \S^6. 



^I'^HE Marquis of Northampton in the Chair. 

 J- The noble President stated that the Council had awarded one of 

 its Medals to M. Le Verrier ; two Medals to Mr. Faraday, for his 

 discoveries in the universal action of Electricity and Galvanism ; and 

 one of the Royal Medals to Prof. Owen, for his paper on the Be- 

 leninite. 



After presenting the Medals, the President proceeded to the bio- 

 graphical notices of some of the deceased members, from which we 

 select the ibllowing : — 



John Bostock, M.D., has long occupied a distinguished station 



