MEMOIRS AND PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE MANCHESTER LITERARY AND 

 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Ordinary Meeting, October ist, 1889. 



Professor Osborne Reynolds, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., 

 President, in the Chair. 



Mr. William Thomson, F.R.S.Ed., F.C.S., exhibited 

 a specimen of aluminium foil, and a discussion on the 

 properties of alloys of the metal, in which Mr. Thomson, 

 Professor Reynolds, Mr. W. H. Johnson, and others took 

 part, ensued. 



The PRESIDENT called attention to Mendelejeffs theory 

 of the formation of petroleum from carbides of iron and not 

 as an organic product, which was described in detail in Mr. 

 Anderson's address as president of the Mechanical Science 

 Section of the British Association Meeting at Newcastle, 

 and Professor W. C. WILLIAMSON observed that the theory 

 was in harmony with a fact which had often puzzled him — 

 that petroleum is not found associated with beds containing 

 plant remains. 



Mr. Charles O'Neil, F.C.S., communicated an account 

 of a curious phenomenon observed recently at Carrington 

 Moss, where, after the removal of a very large crop of 

 potatoes from about 80 or 90 acres of reclaimed land on 

 which nightsoil had been spread, tomatoes spontaneously 

 sprang up over the area. A discussion ensued on the 



