168 



Stated Meeting, November 15. 



Present, twenty-one mennbers. 



Dr. Patterson, President, in tlie Chair. 



A letter was read: — 



From the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 

 dated Society's Rooms, George street, 16th October, 1850, 

 acknowledging the receipt of No, 44, of the Proceedings of 

 this Society. 



The following donations were announced: — 



FOR THE LIBRARY. 



The African Repository. Vol. XXVi. No. 11. Nov. 1850. Wash- 

 ington. 8vo. — From the American Colonization Society. 



The Medical News and Library. Vol. VIIl. No. 95. Nov. 1850. 

 Philadelphia. 8vo. — From Lea 6^ Blanchard. 



Prof. Cresson made some remarks upon the experiments of 

 Prof. Thompson, of which an account is given in a recent num- 

 ber of the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, 

 and which Prof. T. believes to show that the temperature 

 of congelation of water and other bodies that expand at the 

 moment of solidification, is raised proportionally to the in- 

 crease of pressure to which they are subjected, the ratio of 

 temperature to pressure being for water 1-lOth of a degree of 

 Faht. scale for 10 additional atmospheric pressures. 



Mr. C. presented to the notice of the Society a speculation 

 into which he had been led on the subject, showing the effect 

 that such a lav\r might produce in causing water to retain the 

 state of a solid at a very high temperature. For example, if 

 a continuous channel, admitting atmospheric communication, 

 should exist in the crust of the earth to the depth of seventy 

 miles, the pressure of the atmospheric column would exceed 

 fifteen million pounds on the square inch, and according to 

 Prof. T. water should remain solid at a temperature above 

 10,000° Faht., a heat far above that of molten iron. 



The pending nominations were read. 



