Dr. Debus on the Action of Nitric Acid on Alcohol. 39 



of what have lately occiu-red in Japan. To those who may doubt 

 of the power of aqueous currents forcibly and suddenly to remove 

 the solid materials we know to have been lost from the Weald, 

 I submit these considerations. It may be difficult to conceive a 

 motive power in running water equal to the removal of great 

 rock-masses without the help of ice^ like the boulder, for instance, 

 mentioned by Mr. Godwin Austen, lying on the coast at Pagham 

 near Selsey, computed to weigh thirty tons. No earthquake- 

 wave would float, and none perhaps propel such a mass. But if 

 the bed on which the boulder lay was moved, that would move 

 also. Smeaton the engineer, in his autobiography, tells us that 

 he was employed to build a bridge on one of our northern rivers 

 (I quote from memory), — I think it was either the Wear or the 

 Tyue, — where no bridge had hitherto been able to withstand the 

 floods. Smeaton built his bridge, as he supposed, of sufficient 

 strength to withstand any flood to which it could be subjected. 

 It happened soon after that a contingency of rapid thaw and rain 

 produced a flood equal, if not superior, to all former precedent. 

 The engineer was on the spot to watch its effect, and had the 

 mortification to see his bridge swept away before his face. But 

 this eminent man found consolation in the assurance by pi'oof, 

 after the water had subsided, that his bi-idge was not broken 

 down, but that the bed of the river was actually scooped out and 

 the whole carried away together. 



It is with these considerations in his mind I recommend the 

 geologist to examine the lacerated escarpments of the Weald, to 

 study the entrances to the stone-quarries of Boughton or Maid- 

 stone, to examine the combs of Hascomb, of Henly Hill, or the 

 transverse gorges of the rivulets which traverse the greensand 

 escarpments, and he will see how such masses have been torn 

 away, or are now lying as if torn away and prepared for removal. 

 The question here is not, — Were not these materials capable of 

 removal by gradual sea-board erosion ? The question is, — Were 

 they so removed ? With such signs of violent disruption around 

 U8j a reply in the affirmative is impossible. 

 [To be continued.] 



VI. On the Action of Nitric Acid on Alcohol at common Tempe- 

 ratures. — Second Memoir. Bij Dr. 11. Debus*. 



IN the November Number of the Philosophical Magazine I 

 described the preparation of a peculiar aldehyde produced 

 along with glyoxylic acid by the action of nitric acid on alcohol. 

 After the action had ceased, the still acid liquid was evaporated 



* Communiciitcd by the Aiitbor. 



