Proceedings of Learned Societies. 473 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIEK. 



ROYAL SOCIETY.— May 4. 



On the Properties op Liquefied Hydrochloric Acid Gas.— Pro- 

 fessor Stokes communicated a most important paper, by Mr. G. 

 Gore, on the properties of hydrochloric acid gas liquefied under 

 great pressure. The liquid is a very feeble conductor of electricity, 

 and has but a very limited solvent power for solids. Of five metal- 

 loids submitted to it only one was dissolved, namely, iodine ; of 

 fifteen metals placed in it only one, aluminium, was dissolved ; of 

 twenty- two oxides it dissolved only five, namely, titanic, arsenious 

 and arsenic acids, teroxide of antimony, and oxide of zinc ; it had 

 no action on carbonates, and dissolved only one sulphide, that of 

 antimony, and two chlorides, those of phosphorus and tin. These 

 results show that liquid hydrochloric acid gas has much less action 

 on solid bodies than the same substance when combined with water ; 

 this is very remarkable in some cases, as that of lime, where a true 

 hydrogen acid and a powerful base, each in a pure state, and both 

 possessing, under ordinary circumstances, a most powerful mutual 

 affinity, do not react on one another, but remain perfectly uncom- 

 bined, although one is a liquid and the other a porous solid, and 

 they are brought into intimate contact by the enormous pressure 

 requisite to condense the gas, forcing the liquid into the porous 

 solid. 



In consequence of the mode of experimenting, the substances 

 operated on by the liquefied hydrochloric acid were of necessity 

 exposed to the action of the same substance, in the form of gas, 

 before it was condensed into a liquid ; and it appears that, in many 

 cases, the action exerted during the experiment was due rather to 

 the influence of the gas than that of the liquid acid, which appears 

 to be remarkably inert. As a remarkable instance of the power of 

 glass to resist pressure, Mr. Gore mentioned that tubes charged 

 with liquid carbonic acid in 1860 had not suffered any loss by 

 leakage up to the present time. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.— May 24. 

 On the Date of the Formation of the English Channel. — Mr. 

 J. Prestwich read a paper on this subject, in which he expressed 

 his opinion that the break in the land between France and England 

 was not the result of the last geological change, but that the 

 channel existed at the period of the formation of the Low-level 

 gravels of the Somme and Thames Valleys, and probably at that of 

 the High-level gravels. Daring a recent visit to the Sangatte 

 raised beach, he recognized fragments of chert in the shingle and 

 associated sands, which he inferred were derived from the Lower 

 Cretaceous strata; associated with' them were fragments from the 

 Oolitic series of the Boulonnais and two pebbles of red granite, 



