- 



Geological Society. 165 



oxide, in its fuel form, carries on with it the 2800° in chemical force, 

 which it evolves when burning in the real furnace with a sufficient 

 supply of air. The remaining 1200° are employed in the gas-pro- 

 ducer in distilling hydrocarbons^ decomposing water, &c. The whole 

 mixed gaseous fuel can evolve about 4000° in the furnace, to which 

 the regenerator can return about 3000° more. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 [Continued from p. 76.] _ 

 May 21, 1862. — Poof. A. C. Ramsay, President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "On the Metamorphic Rocks of the Banffshire Coast, the 

 Scarabins, and a portion of East Sutherland." By Prof. R. Hark- 

 ness, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The coast-section from Gamrie to Buckie was first described ; it 

 consists mainly of folded gneiss and grauwacke sandstone and shale, 

 with underlying quartz-rock, of great thickness, conformable, and 

 folded with it, and seen in anticlinals at Melross, Banff, and Duni- 

 dich, and still more in an arch between Cullen and Buckie. Two 

 folds of limestone, obscurely stratified, and not persistent, occur with 

 the schists at the Burn of Boyne and Dunidich. The dykes of 

 syenite, of granite, and of serpentine (Portsoy) were also pointed 

 out in this section, as well as two outliers of the Old Pi,ed deposits 

 at Dunidich and Cullen. The metamorphic rocks above mentioned 

 have a predominating south-east dip, and the folds hang over to the 

 north-west ; but the author regards these strata as holding a reversed 

 position, the gneissose and grauwacke strata being really the upper- 

 most of the series, as in other parts of the North of Scotland. 



The section from the sea at Berridale, across the Scarabins, to 

 Strath-naver was next described. Here the granite of Bean-na- 

 aiglesh succeeds to the Old Red Sandstone of Berridale, and is 

 'succeeded by the gneiss and folded white quartz-rock of the Scara- 

 bins. From the Scarabins to Strath-naver granite and gneiss alter- 

 nate in laminar masses, dipping south-east, towards the Scarabins, 

 here and there bearing unconformable outliers of Old Red Sandstone. 

 In this case also the author pointed out that a reversed dip^obtained, by 

 which the really uppermost gneissose rock was made to appear lower 

 in position than the quartzite. 



Professor Harkness further alluded to the conformability of the 

 granite with the strata in this district, and to the probability of its 

 being rather the result of an excessive amount of metamorphic 

 action than of plutonic origin. 



2. " On the Geology of the Gold-fields of Nova Scotia." By the 

 Rev. David Honeyman. 



The author, at the request of the Provincial Government Com- 

 mission for the International Exhibition, made some observations on 

 the auriferous rocks at Allen's and Laidlow's farms, near the junc- 

 tion of the Halifax-and- Windsor and the Halifax-and-Truro Railways. 

 He found chloritic schist, with vertical auriferous quartz-veins, and 



