British Association for the Advancement of Science. 267 
quired of the bituminous kinds for the production of one ton of pig 
iron, the increase of from forty to fifty per cent. upon the former, 
make by this process, and the increased strength of the metal, when 
compared with that before obtained by him from the native ores of 
the South Welsh basin, with the use of the coke of the bituminous 
veins and cold blast, were the leading points of the paper. Mr. 
Crane dwelt on the abundance of this variety of fuel, of which there 
are large deposits in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Sardinia, France, 
Transylvania, and particularly America.” 
On the Crystallization of Metals by Galvanic Influence.—The 
Secretary then read a paper, by Mr. Golding Bird, ‘on the crys- 
tallization of metals by galvanic influence.’ To this department 
of knowledge popular attention has been peculiarly attracted by 
the well known experiments of Mr. Crosse, detailed at the last 
meeting of the British Association at Bristol; and it is in con- 
nexion with this gentleman’s experiment that the present paper is 
more particularly interesting. It has long been a matter of extreme 
interest and importance to connect those changes constantly going 
on in the physical world with those which are observed in the labora- 
tory of the chemist ; to compare the researches of the experimental 
philosopher with the effects every where produced in the vast am- 
phitheatre of nature. With this view the experiments about to be 
detailed were undertaken. Philosophers have long been accustomed 
to attribute the formation and crystallization of metals in mineral 
veins to voltaic action, but this could be regarded as little else than 
a matter of assumption until some experiments actually supported 
this point of view. ‘To M. Becquerel we are mainly indebted for 
the knowledge of the power of a single galvanic circle in producing 
powerful voltaic decompositions, whilst to our own countryman, Dr. 
Faraday, we owe that most important piece of information, that 
poles, or attracting surfaces, are by no means requisite to the crys- 
tallization of a metal, and that all that is necessary for the reduction 
of a metal from a salt or oxide is the mere passage of a voltaic cur- 
rent. ‘That this current may be of the weakest intensity has been 
shown by Dr. Bird in an essay lately read before the Royal Society 
of London. ‘The apparatus contrived by Mr. Bird was very simple, 
consisting of an external cylinder of glass, capable of holding about 
half a pint of fluid, filled with a solution of common salt, (chloride 
of sodium ;) into the contents of this cylinder was plunged a second 
and smaller cylinder, furnished at its lower extremity with a plug of 
