On an Organic Matter found in an ancient Egyptian Bottle. 345 



not been brought about by hydrostatical principles, althougb the 

 mean form has most probably been so. 



12. If this be a correct conclusion, it follows (see art. 6) that 

 the country about the middle of the Indian arc is more elevated 

 by some feet than its extremities. No doubt if this long arc 

 were further subdivided into many portions, and their lengths 

 estimated and their amplitudes corrected for attraction, they 

 would all be found to have different ellipticities, the mean of 

 which would be the ellipticity of the Indian arc. For it is hardly 

 to be supposed, that if the form of the whole arc has been made 

 to deviate from the fluid form by upheaval from below, that the 

 curve of 800 miles has perfectly preserved its symmetry north 

 and south of the middle point. Different portions are no doubt 

 bent differently, and this process of calculation would show it. 

 The calculation which I have made (and for the details of which 

 I must refer to the paper in the Philosophical Transactions) 

 exhibits this principle only for the whole arc, and not for its 

 parts separately. 



13. But this, I think, is sufficient to establish my point, and 

 I gather from it the two following conclusions : — 



I. The crust of the earth was too thick at the time the surface 

 assumed its present form, and therefore is now too thick, to suflfer 

 the fluid below to regulate that form; for it has been proved 

 that a large portion of it, the Indian arc of 800 miles, has not 

 the form which the fluid theory requires. 



II. Since the epoch when the crust became too thick for the 

 fluid below to regulate the form of the surface, other forces — of 

 upheaval, or of depression, or both — must have been in action ; 

 for the middle of the Indian arc is some feet higher than its two 

 extremities when measured from the fluid level. 



The forces thus brought to light by an investigation in mathe- 

 matical physics must be of the nature of those which exhibit the 

 great geological law I proposed to illustrate. 



J. H. Pratt. 



Lausanne, October 6, 1855. 



XL VI. Examination of an Organic Matter found in an ancient 

 Egyptian Bottle. By Philip B. Ayres, M.D. Lorcd."^ 



A SHORT time since I was requested by my friend B. Night- 

 ingale, Esq., to submit to analysis a substance he had 

 shaken out of an ancient Egyptian bottle, su])posed by him to have 

 contained wine. The bottle was of coarse earthenware, formed of 

 clay mixed with a considerable proportion of sand ; it was glo- 



* Communicated by the Author. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 4. Vol. 10. No. 67. Nov. 1855. 2 A 



