Proceedings of Learned Societies. 237 



removal by denudation and erosion, coming down upon some of the 

 Lower Palaeozoic rocks. 



As such hazardous speculation would be beyond the sphere of 

 private enterprise, Professor Jukes thinks that the explorations 

 ought to be made at the national expense. 



In his inaugural address to the chemical section Professor Miller 

 recounted the chemical discoveries and progress of the past year, 

 and alluded to many new applications of the science to the useful 

 arts, particularly to the improved methods in the voltaic depo- 

 sition of metals. He stated that Weil had, by the use of a solution 

 of tartrate of copper, coated steel and iron with a tough closely- 

 adherent sheathing of the metal, by simply suspending the articles 

 to be coated in the copper solution, by means of a wire of zinc, no 

 battery being required ; and that lead and tin may be also deposited 

 on iron or copper in a similar manner, provided the oxides of those 

 metals be dissolved in a strong solution of caustic soda. 



Professor Miller described the singular experiments of Deville 

 and Froost, proving the permeability of metals to gases at high 

 temperatures. Thus platinum and iron when white hot are per- 

 fectly porous and readily permeated by hydrogen, but recover their 

 usual character as they cool. This passage of hydrogen will take place 

 at a white heat through a tube, the thickness of which is one-sixth 

 of an inch. These discoveries have an immediate practical bearing, 

 as they prove that air pyrometers constructed of metal are not to 

 be relied on. Glazed porcelain, however, is not open to the same 

 objection, as it appears perfectly impervious to gases at all tem- 

 peratures to which it has been exposed. 



Sir Henry Rawlinson delivered the inaugural address in the 

 Geographical Section, and recounted the important geographical 

 events of the past year, which have been recorded in the pages of 

 the Intellectual Observer. 



Sir Henry Rawlinson mentioned that Mr. Greenhow, an 

 American merchant, had fitted out an expedition, headed by Capt. 

 Hall, to proceed in search of the remains of the Franklin expedition. 

 Capt. Hall is at present on the track of Franklin, and, it is to be 

 hoped, will discover any farther remains that may exist of that 

 ill-fated exploration. 



In the department of Statistics and Political Economy the 

 address was read by Lord Stanley, and in that of Mechanical 

 Science by Sir W. Armstrong, the main topics of his speech being 

 the mode of action of Giffard's injector, which has already been 

 described in the Intellectual Observer ; the advantages of Siemen's 

 regenerative furnace, and of Bessemer's process for making cast- 

 steel. In our next we shall give abstracts of such of the more 

 important discoveries brought forward in the different sections as 

 have not been hitherto described in our pages. 



