ySS Proceedings of Philosophical Societies, [Mat, 



which he observed, and of which it is scarcely possible to give an 

 idea without the assistance of figures. He found the phenomena 

 the same when the experiments were tried in vacuo as in the open 

 air. Nor did the introduction of water between the plates alter the 

 phenomena much. Hence he conceives that the rings are not 

 owing, as Newton supposed, to the film of air between the plates. 

 He conceives them to be derived from the reflection of the surface 

 of the glar.s next the film of air. The changes induced by the 

 passage of the ray from one medium into another may occasion 

 such refractions as to collect together the different bundles of 

 coloured rays so as to produce tlie coloured rings. 



On Thursday, the 13ih of April, a paper by Major Rennell was 

 read, stating further proofs in confirmation of the existence of a 

 current setting upon the Scilly Islands, in the chops of the Channel. 

 He adduced three proofs that there exists a current running east 

 along the north coast of Spain. The French navigators are aware 

 that there is a current which sets north along the west coast of 

 France, and it is obviously the Spanish current which has received 

 a northerly direction, from the position of the land. All the sand 

 and alluvial matter which is brought into the Bay of Biscay by the 

 Garonne, the Loire, and the other rivers which empty themselves 

 into the sea on the west coast of France, is found on the north side, 

 of the mouths of the respective rivers, and not on the south, a 

 circumstance which can be occasioned only by a northerly current. 

 He brought several facts showing that a northerly current exists 

 about lat, 49*^ at the mouth of the Channel, and rendered it pro- ■ 

 bable that it flows also westerly, as well as north. This current 

 flows at different times with different velocities, and this he assigned 

 as the probable reason why it was not discovered sooner. 



There is a current likewise which flows east along the south coast 

 of Ireland, and meeting with the first described current, flows 

 northward into St. George's Channel, and moves in the direction to 

 Cardigan Bay. This current is ihe cause why ships are so frequently 

 driven into that bay. There is a current which runs up along the 

 west coast of Ireland, turns east along the north coast, and then 

 flows south certainly as far as Dublin, and probably further. There 

 is another current that flows north along the west coast of Scotland, 

 bends round the northern part of the island, and flows south along 

 the east coast of Great Britain as far as Harwich, where it meeta 

 with the current in the English Channel. These produce a current 

 north-east along the coast of Flanders and Holland ; it then pro- 

 ceeds north along .Jutland, receives the current coming out from the 

 Baltic, proceeds to the Naze of Norway, and then runs north 

 along the coast of that country. 



Oa Thursday, the 20th of April, a paper by Sir Humphry Davy 

 on a combination of iodine and oxygen, was read. The author in 

 a former paper had given an account of several unsuccessful 

 attempts to form this compound. It occurred to him that if euchlb- 

 rice gas {oxide of chloriiie) were made to act directly on iodine, the 



