Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 77 



calcareous septa in the last case are dolomitic, but iu the other 

 instances are composed of nearly pure carbonate of lime. 



The author then gave the results of a chemical analysis of spe- 

 cimens from the different localities, and deduced therefrom the com- 

 position and affinities of Loganite ; this mineral he considered to be 

 allied to chlorite and to pyrosclerite in composition, but to be 

 distinguished from them by its structure. 



In conclusion, the author showed that the various silicates already 

 mentioned were directly deposited in waters in the midst of which 

 the Eozoon was still growing or had only recently perished, and 

 that they penetrated, enclosed, and preserved the structure of the 

 organisms precisely as carbonate of lime might have done ; and he 

 cites these and other facts in support of his opinion that these sili- 

 cated minerals were formed, not by subsequent metamorphism in 

 deeply buried sediments, but by reactions going on at the earth's 

 surface. 



XIII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



REMARKS ON THE LETTER PUBLISHED BY DR. J. DAVY IN THE 

 DECEMBER NUMBER OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Collingwood, Hawkhurst, Kent, 

 Gentlemen, December 12, 1864. 



F HAVE received within a few days a copy of Dr. Davy's letter to 

 -*- you, forwarded to me by its author, of whose publication in your 

 Magazine I was till then ignorant (but which bears the date of Oc- 

 tober 20th, 1864), in reference to certain charges in a late work 

 by Mr. Babbage. 



In it he expresses an impression that from what he has learned 

 I would not support Mr. Babbage's statements respecting a certain 

 conversation alleged by him to have taken place at a Council of the 

 Royal Society held on Nov. 23, 1826, between Dr. Wollaston and Sir 

 Humphry Davy — nor indeed respecting a promise alleged to have 

 been given to me by the latter, that Mr. Babbage should become my 

 colleague in the Secretaryship of the Royal Society then vacant and 

 about to be filled up. 



From the circumstance of Dr. Davy's sending me a copy of that 

 letter at so considerable an interval after its publication, I cannot but 

 conclude that he is desirous to be confirmed, or otherwise, respecting 

 this his impression ; and that, in fact, I am to regard his doing so as 

 a call on me to that effect. 



No one can lament more deeply than myself that this subject 

 should have been revived after so long an interval, when both 

 the principal parties concerned in it, and so many of those more or 

 less cognizant of its details while in progress, are deceased. Were 

 it not therefore that I was myself a principal means of inducing 

 Mr. Babbage to allow himself to be mentioned to the President as a 

 candidate, and thereby of causing to him a disappointment which it 

 appears he felt most severely, I should assuredly decline responding 

 to Dr. Davy's appeal. In doing so, however, I shall take care to 



