Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 539 
- 2, “On Elevations and Depressions of the Earth in North 
America.” By Dr. A. Gesner, F.G.S. 
After some observations on the differences between volcanic uplifts 
of the land and the slow upward and downward shiftings produced 
by changes in the position of great parallel areas during long periods 
of time, the author proceeds to enumerate evidences of local eleva- 
tion and subsidence that he has observed along the coast from the 
northern part of Labrador to New Jersey. 
In the south-eastern part of New Jersey, at Nantucket, Martha’s 
Vineyard, and Portland, submergence of ‘the land is proceeding, 
locally at the rate of probably four feet in sixty years. In New 
Brunswick, at St. John’s the land has been elevated; at the Great 
Manan Island and the Great ‘T'antaman Marsh there has been sub- 
sidence. At Bathurst and on the opposite coast of Lower Canada 
the land seems to be rising. In Nova Scotia, near the Bay of Fundy 
and Mines Basin there is subsidence; on the southern side, however, 
there are signs of elevation. The sea rapidly encroaches upon 
Louisberg in Cape Breton; and in Prince Edward’s Island, also, at 
Cascumpec, submergence of the land is taking place. 
LXXIX. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
ON THE THEORY OF CYLINDRICAL CONDENSERS. 
BY M. J. M. GAUGAIN. 
HAVE ina former note” called attention to the fact that it is very 
difficult to analyse the phenomena of condensation produced in 
submarine telegraphic cables, the gutta percha which envelopes them 
being only imperfectly non-conducting, so that there is at one and the 
same time propagation by conductibility and condensation. To study 
the latter phenomenon by itself, I substituted for gutta percha di- 
electrics, which isolate much more perfectly ; I employed for this 
purpose gum-lac and air; with gum-lac the absorption is very small, 
with air it is nothing, or altogether imperceptible. 
The laws which I have succeeded in establishing are very simple, 
and may be of some practical utility, since they afford a solution of 
the different questions which relate to electric condensation in sub- 
merged cables; it is, however, from a philosophical point of view that 
they seem to be of the greatest interest, since they confirm in a 
remarkable manner the views of Faraday. This illustrious physicist, 
in amemoir published in 1837 (Experimental Researches, Series XI. 
No. 1320), expressed himself nearly as follows :—‘‘ The power of 
isolating and that of conducting are only two extreme degrees of the 
same property, and ought to be considered as being of the same nature 
in any satisfactory mathematical theory.” Now it will be seen that, 
in the case at least of cylindrical condensers, the laws which regulate 
the propagation of electricity by excitation do not differ from those 
which Ohm has established for propagation by conductibility. The 
general results of my researches may be stated shortly as follows :— 
1. When the internal cylinder is the collector, that is to say, when 
it communicates with the source, and the external cylinder commu- 
* Comptes Rendus, 28th October, 1860. 
