372 



Miscellanies. 



Geology of England and Wales, pp. 331-2* During a visit last fall 



Men 



1st. 



mouth County, I was led from facts^ which presented themselves, to 

 adopt a different theory from either of the ahove. I would not now 

 attempt to make a general application of it; though 1 see no reason 

 why it may not be extensively applied. The theory in ques- 

 tion is as follows^ that the beds of lignite in the plastic clay of 

 JV. Jl have been carbonized through the agency of sulphuric t 

 The following are facts which go to support me in this opinion. 

 The charring of the wood and vegetable matter seems to be of recent 

 occurrence and to be even now going on. — 2d* If the charring was pro- 

 duced by w^ater after a long submergence, the effect ought to be nearly 

 equal throughout the beds, but some logs have suffered no change ; 

 in others, the change is confined to the bark or surface, other pieces of 

 wood are perfect charcoal, the different effects evidently owing to 

 an unequal exposure to the agent which produces the carbonization. 

 3d, Free sulphuric acid may be detected in the small streams flow- 

 ing down the banks which unquestionably is produced by the de- 

 composition of iron pyrites so abundandy diffused through the bed. 

 4th, The charring is most perfect wdiere pyrites abound the most, 

 and where this mineral is wholly wanting, no carbonization is percep- 

 tible. 



AVhether Others will, on visiting this region, come to the same con- 

 clusion that 1 have, I am unable to tell, but it is certain that the re- 

 gion is w"orthy of a visit, and no geologist w^ould grudge ilie expense 

 of a tour to the plastic clay near Middletown Point and the adjacent 

 secondary formation, termed the marie beds, as they abound in organ- 

 ic relics of a most interesting character, and approach nearer to 

 those of the chalk formation of Europe than anv our country affords. 



11. 



iflammation of ph 



Vacuum 



M 



Prof, of Nat, Phil, and Chem. Col. De- 



part. Univ. Pennsylvania. 



Philadelx^hia, May 18, 1S30 



Dear Sir, — In the last number of the American Journal of Sci- 

 ence and Arts, (page 147) I observed an extract from one of the for- 

 eign journals, in relation to the experiment of Van Bemmelen, witli 

 phosphorus in the rarefied air of the receiver of an air pump. The 

 article from which that extract is taken reached us in the Bulletin des 

 Sciences Physiques, &ic. about the same time with the first Vol. of the 



1 



