[ 417 ] 



XXXVII. Notices respecting New Books. 



Harper's Scientific Memoirs. Edited by Dr. J. 8. Ames, 

 Professor of Physics in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. — 

 I. The Free Expansion of Gases ; Memoirs by Gray-Lussae, Joule, 

 and Joule and Thomson. — II. Prismatic and, Diffraction Spectra ; 

 Memoirs bv J. you Fraunhofer. New York & London : Harper 

 & Bros., 1898. 



r PHESE two volumes form the commencement of a series of 

 -■- memoirs on different branches of physics, each containing the 

 more important epoch-making papers in connexion with the 

 subject of the memoir. Professor Ames, in addition to editing the 

 series, contributes the translations of the papers by Gruy-Lussac 

 and Fraunhofer in the first and second volume respectively, and 

 in subsequent volumes such subjects as " The Second Law of 

 Thermodynamics," " Solutions," " The Laws of Gases," and 

 " Kontgen Kays " will, among others, receive similar treatment. 

 Each paper will be enriched by notes aud references, and the 

 bibliography of the subject will be given in an appendix to each 

 volume. 



The series will serve to bring before English-speaking readers 

 the principal foreign classical papers on physical subjects, and 

 the reprinting of the papers published in the numerous and 

 frequently inaccessible journals issued in this country should prove 

 a great convenience. The list of American physicists who have 

 undertaken a share of the editing is a guarantee that the work will 

 be done with the characteristic industry of our friends across the 

 Atlantic. J. L. H. 



XXXVIII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from p. 328.] 



December 7th (cont.) — W. Whitaker, B.A., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. 



2. 'The Permian Conglomerates of the Lower Severn Basin.' 

 By W. Wickham King, Esq., F.G.S. 



The rocks thus described are the calcareous conglomerates in- 

 cluded in the Middle Permian of the Shropshire type, and exposed 

 north of the Abberley and Lickey Hills. Three calcareous horizons 

 occur, interstratified in sandstones or marls and surmounted by 

 the Permian breccia. It was the opinion of Ramsay and others 

 that the materials of the calcareous horizons and of the Permian 

 breccia had been brought from the Welsh border ; but Buckland and 



