XXVI PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



were now iindertakerij with all the aid the present state of chemistry 

 could afford, of many minerals the supposed composition of which 

 only rests upon old examinations. Berzelius found wavellite to be a 

 hydrous phosphate of alumina, while Sir Humphrey Davy, in a pre- 

 vious analysis, had altogether missed the phosphoric acid. In his 

 turn, however, Berzelius missed phosphoric acid in chalkolite, which 

 Mr. Richard Phillips afterwards found, and Berzelius acknowledged 

 as correct. 



Berzelius was perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of 

 Stockholm, and numerous academies and scientific bodies in various 

 parts of the world honoured themselves by enrolling his name among 

 their members. Such was the value attached to his labours by his 

 sovereign, Charles John XIV. of Sweden, that he placed him among 

 the hereditary nobility of his country, creating him a Baron. Though 

 suffering from long and severe illness, with his lower extremities 

 finally paralysed, Berzelius continued to labour in that science to 

 which he had devoted him.self, with his faculties unimpaired, until 

 death terminated his bodily afflictions on the 7th of August, 1848, at 

 the age of sixty-nine years. 



With reference to the communications made to us since the last 

 Anniversary, we will endeavour, as last year, so to classify them 

 that our progress in the various branches of geological research may 

 be the better seen. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



Accumulations of Mineral Matter now taking place. 



Respecting the accumulation of mineral matter now taking place 

 on the surface of the earth, mechanically and chemically, by aqueous 

 and chemical means, we have had little brought before us. Mr. 

 Dawson, in his communication "on the Colouring Matter of Red 

 Sandstones and of Greyish and White Beds associated with them," 

 mentions, as bearing on the manner in which variations of colour may 

 have been produced, certain deposits in the harbour of Pictou, Nova 

 Scotia. Three rivers and several minor streams carry large quanti- 

 ties of reddish mud during floods into the harbour. This mud set- 

 tles on the bottom and undergoes a change of colour. Old mud 

 taken up is of a dark tint, emitting a strong smell of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen. When dry it is grey, and Mr. Dawson considers that the 

 iron of the peroxide, giving the original red tint to the deposit, has 

 combined with the sulphates in the sea- water, '* by the deoxidating 

 influence of decaying vegetable matter, the greater part of which ap- 

 pears to be furnished by the eel-grass (Zostera marina), which grows 

 abundantly in the mud flats." This the author notices as explaining 

 the occurrence of iron pyrites amid organic matter in rocks. The 

 vegetable matter is mentioned as so completely decomposed in some 

 parts of Pictou Harbour that no trace of it remains, as if the carbon 

 had been entirely removed as carbonic acid also in part formed at 

 the expense of the peroxide of iron. 



