276 Messrs. Gee and Holden on the Change of 



of geological time is not so great as is ordinarily assumed. 

 There is no reason to believe that the time required for the 

 deposit of thick strata must be longer, proportionally to the 

 number of feet, than that required for the deposit of thin. 

 If the thick strata had been laid down in waters as deep as the 

 average of the deeper areas of the Atlantic, vast time might 

 perhaps have been required ; but there is no evidence for 

 such depths having ever been attained to the east of the 

 present line of 100-fathom soundings off the British Islands. 

 Even the Carboniferous and Cretaceous Limestones do not 

 prove the existence of such deep waters ; they only show 

 that at these periods there was long-continued subsidence and 

 continuous deposit in clear water. Prof. Huxley's homotaxis 

 is thus applied within the compass of the European area ; 

 and, if the views embodied in this table are correct, the careful 

 correlation of strata which has given so much occupation to 

 geologists loses much of its importance. The palseontological 

 differences are the variations of inhabitants of adjacent zoo- 

 logical areas on a sea-floor inclining westwards. 



XXXV. Experiments on Electrolysis. — Part I. Change of Den- 

 sity of the Electrolyte at the Electrodes. By W. W. Haldane 

 Gee, B.Sc, Assistant Lecturer in Physics, and H. Holden", 

 B.Sc, Bishop Berkeley Fellow in Physics, of the teens 

 College, Manchester* '. 



WHILST studying some electrolytic polarization phe- 

 nomena with palladium electrodes in dilute pure 

 sulphuric acid, a liquid was seen, after a reversal of the cur- 

 rent, to flow downwards in streaks from the anode. Not being 

 able to find any reference to the formation of streaks, for 

 whose appearance the reversal of the current was necessary, 

 it was decided to investigate their character. Further, it 

 was thought that the occluded hydrogen might, on reversal 

 of the current, unite with the nascent ion liberated at the 

 anode, and thus effect chemical changes of an interesting 

 character. 



Some little care in observation and adjustment of the light 



* Communicated by the Physical Society : read February 25, 1888. 



This is the first of a series of papers on Electrolysis and Electrolytic 

 Polarization, descriptive of experiments made, during- last year, at the 

 Owens College Physical Laboratory. An abstract of the experiments 

 made, to the end of August 1887, was subuiited to the British Associa- 

 tion Meeting at Manchester. We desire to acknowledge the assistance 

 received up to that time from Mr. C. H. Lees, B.Sc, Derby Mathematical 

 Scholar of the Owens College. His cooperation has since been discon- 

 tinued, owing to absence at Strasburg. 



