Proceedings. 99 



Ordinary Meeting, April 14th, 1896. 

 Henry Wilde, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors 

 of the books upon the table. 



Professor Osborne Reynolds, F.R.S., exhibited a 

 slab of Itacolumite, a flexible stone which is associated 

 with the presence of the diamond. 



Mr. R. L. Taylor, F.C.S., F.I.C., exhibited a simple 

 form of apparatus for liquefying some of the more easily 

 liquefiable gases by means of the compressed gas in an 

 ordinary cylinder of oxygen. 



Mr. C. L. Barnes, M.A., read an extract from a paper 

 in the Philosophical Transactions for 1826, by Jacob 

 Perkins, "On the Progressive Compression of Water by 

 high degrees of force, with some trials of its effects on 

 other fluids," in which the writer described the liquefac- 

 tion of air at 1,000 or 1,200 atmospheres, and of carburetted 

 hydrogen at 40 atmospheres and upwards. As no cooling 

 of these gases was described, it is obvious that the lique- 

 faction could not possibly have been accomplished, the 

 temperatures being far above the critical points. Professor 

 Dixon suggested that it was the aqueous vapour which 

 condensed. This explanation seems most probable in the 

 absence of any special attempt to dry the gases. 



Mr. Alfred Brothers, F.R.A.S., exhibited two ruled 

 plates containing 132 lines to the lineal inch, the plates 

 when revolved on each other producing remarkable diaper 

 effects. 



Dr. George Bowman exhibited two receipts by Dr. 

 John Dalton, dated respectively June 24 and September 

 29, 1 83 1, for payments for private lessons in chemistry 

 at is. 6d. each, as illustrating the low cost of scientific 

 education 65 years ago. 



