PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE MANCHESTER LITERARY AND 

 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Ordinary Meeting, October 5th, 1897. 

 James Cosmo Melvill, M.A., F.L.S., President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of the 

 books upon the table. 



Dr. C. H. Lees gave an account of Zeeman's further 

 researches on the effect of a magnetic field on light, and explained 

 the theory of the production of triplets in directions perpendicular 

 to the lines of the field. 



Mr. F. J. Faraday suggested that, in view of the enormous 

 importance of the question of the duration of the gold supply, 

 considered from an economic standpoint in connection with the 

 increasing legislative tendency to base all valuations and all 

 contracts for long periods ahead on gold, the Council might 

 usefully elicit from Professor Suess, of Vienna, an honorary 

 member of the Society, and the highest living geological authority 

 on the physical formation of the crust of the earth and on the 

 deposits of the precious metals, an expression of opinion on the 

 character of the Klondike deposits and also on the South 

 African deposits according to the latest evidence yielded by the 

 development of mining. In Mr. Faraday's opinion, the question 

 had a scientific importance in economics equal to that of the 

 duration of the coal supply. 



Several members of Council spoke on the subject, expressing 

 a fear lest the introduction of a practice of officially soliciting 



