TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS, 45 



The three atoms of hydriodic acid resulting' from reaction between three atoms 

 of iodide of ethyl and one atom of rosaniline are thus appropriated ; one atom goes 

 to saturate the ethyl-rosaniline, and the remaining two react upon the alcohol : 



2m+2aH,0 = 2Pn+H,0+(C,H,),0. 



Or we may suppose that the production of ether takes place quite directly : 



C,H,I+C,H,0 = HI+(C,H,,XO. 



Whichever way we regard the reaction, the fact is deserving of attention. Rea- 

 soning upon it, we shoidd be led to expect the production of ether in the process 

 for the preparation of the ethylated ammonias, i. e. when we heat iodide of ethyl 

 with alcoholic solution of ammonia. Common ether is likewise to be looked for in 

 the preparation of various compound ethers by digesting different salts with iodide 

 of ethyl and alcohol. 



I am informed that this formation of ether as a by-product in the manufacture 

 of ethylated rosaniline has also been noticed by Continental manufacturers. 



On Isomorphism, By Dr. Williamson. 



GEOLOaT. 



Address hy John Phillips, M.A., LL.D., F.B.S., F. G.8., Professor of Geology 

 in the University of Oxford, President of the Section. 



The age of geological discover}^ is by many persons thought to have passed away 

 with Hutton and Werner, Humboldt and Yon Buch, Smith and Cuvier, Cony- 

 beare and Buckland, Forbes and De la Beche ; and they regard as almost final the 

 honoured researches of Sedgwick and Mm-chison, and Lyell. Yet in this very 

 district, the most carefully examined perhaps of aU the richly fossiliferous tracts 

 of England, oiu- friend Mr. C. Moore is finding a multitude of interesting forms of 

 life of the later triassic age, and is thus enriching in an unexpected manner the 

 catalogue of fossils in Britain. Nor is the practical application of our science less 

 actively exercised. In this very district Mr. Sanders has just completed that ad- 

 mirable Survey of£the strata on the large scale of 4 inches to a mile, and showing 

 every field, which is suspended before you. Su- R. Murchison has informed us of 

 the further proof of the extension of coal under the Permians of Nottinghamshire ; 

 and at this very Meeting we receive through the same channel, from Mr. M'Kenzie, 

 the news of the finding of an additional bed of coal in Australia, thirty miles from 

 any former known site of coal, the bed being 38 feet thick and of good quality. 



Nothing is better settled than the series of great events in om- geological history ; 

 yet even now we are rejoicing over the large addition made to this history by the 

 discovery of the richly fossiliferous beds of St. Cassian and Kossen, by which the 

 triassic faima is enlarged, and the means of comparing Palaeozoic and Mesozoic life 

 augmented by some hundreds of forms, including some genera of the older, and 

 others of the newer systems. The Director of the National Survey has decided to 

 give to these strata in England and Wales a distinct colour on his map and a 

 definite name. 



But a few years since, the varied strata of marine and freshwater origin above 

 the chalk were carelessly, if not contemptuouslv, classed as ' superficial deposits ; ' 

 now they have acquired a large and regular history, embracing a gi-eat succession 

 of organic life, in the sea and on the land, which is appropriately crowned by the 

 works of intelligent man. Not long since, the ' diluvium ' or ' drift ' was merely 

 an iU-uaderstood basis for ill-considered speculation : now we have classified its 

 parts ; have begun to survey the movements of land and sea which preceded and 

 accompanied these latest superficial accumulations; and have even ventured to 

 apply to them measures of time, in a continuous chronology. 



The new problems opened by these researches, the inferences to which they 



