668 REPOiiT— 1903. 



4. On a Possible Cause of the Lethal Effects produced by the Dust emitted 

 during the Recent Volcanic Eruptions in the West Indies. By J. G. 



GOODCHILD. 



When volcanic materials are expelled into the air in the form of either lava 

 streams or ejected fragments, some of their component minerals may be in a 

 chemical state in which they are capable of combining with a higher percentaf^e 

 of oxygen than they contained when they left the volcanic vent. Two results 

 would follow from such oxidation — one being the rise of temperature due to the 

 heat of combination, the other, correlative to it, an abstraction of oxygen from the 

 surrounding atmosphere proportionate in amount to the surface acted upon. 



In the cases in which a large quantity of finely divided material in a more or 

 le.ss pumiceous state is suddenly discharged into the air the aggregate surface 

 exposed to the atmosphere must be extremeh^ large, and it appears likely that a 

 quantity of oxygen proportionately great may be abstracted. The loss of oxygen 

 is, of course, soon made good by diffusion from the areas around ; but, for the time 

 being, it appeai-s possible that the air carried forward along with heavy discharges 

 of volcanic dust, such as were ejected during the late eruptions in the West Indies, 

 may have sustained their initial temperature for some time through oxidation, 

 and may consequently have raised the temperature of the surrounding air to a 

 very high point. Furthermore, the abstraction of so large a quantity of ox3'gen 

 may have also helped to malio the air around the stream of dust unsuitable for the 

 support of life, 



5. Notes on the Metalliferous Deposits of the South of Scotland, 

 By J. G. GooDCHiLD and Wilbert Goodchild, 3f.B. 



6. Ilotcs on the Glacial Drainage of the Forest of Rossendale, 



By A. JOAVETT. 



7. A Theory of the Origin of Continents and Ocean Basins, 

 By William Mackie, M.A., M.D. 



Whatever the conditions at present obtaining in the interior of the earth, it 

 is naturally supposed to have originally passed through a stage in which the 

 conditions would be represented by a solid, or potentially solid, nucleus, a slowly 

 forming and slowly thickening acid crust, with a liquid and more or less basic 

 interstratum. At lirst the crust would be sufficiently liexible to accommodate 

 itself to the tidal movements of the subjacent liquid interstratum, but when it 

 became too rigid to admit of this tidal movement it would bo broken up, the 

 fracture probably following certain fairly defined and assignable lines. Jt is 

 argued that the fragments would not have 'gone under,' but would have remained 

 with their surfaces at a considerably higher level than the surface of the magma, 

 ^nd have become so fixed by consolidation of the magma around them. 



It is suggested that the first great breach in the crust followed the outline of 

 the tidal protuberance, and was, in all probability, effected at some conjunction 

 of the sun and moon with cataclysmal suddenness, the intervening crust being 

 shivered into small fragments, these fragments being subsequently disposed of 

 by fusion in and incorporation with the magma. The first oval breach thus 

 caused is the prototype of the Pacific Ocean. Further fractures, along definite 

 lines, gave rise to the other oceans, and caused the separation of the continents. 

 Under the influence of tidal retardation the fragments as thus blocked out became 

 separated and finally moored at their respective dista.nces by the solidification of 

 the magma around them. 



With the resolidificatiou of the crust, a series of stresses is set up between 

 the ocean Ijasins, which consist of the more basic, consequently specifically heavier, 



