

1838.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 369 



One of these in the form of a large cylindric boot was claimed by Dr. Spry, as 

 having been intended for transmission by him to the English manufacturers. It 

 was explained that the cylinder or bottle form was the most convenient for the 

 makers at home, who place the cylinder on the lathe and cut off by machinery a 

 continual thread therefrom. This use was as yet unknown to Indian cultivators 

 who imagined the Caoutchouc was only intended for solution. 



Captain Lloyd, presented through Dr. McClelland, a specimen of the 

 mud brought up from the Swatch, or place of no soundings at the top of 

 the Bay of Bengal. The following note by Dr. McClelland was read. 

 • The specimens were brought up from 200 fathoms on the north side of the Swatch 

 at a short distance from shoal water by which it is said to be surrounded ; but 

 Capt. Lloyd supposes from the eddy that here appears, though slightly, to run 

 against the tide, that the Swatch is open to seaward. 



These are the deepest soundings that have been made, and the texture of the 

 deposit brought up bears a singular resemblance to that of the upper beds of primi- 

 tive clay-slate*, though it possesses all the characters of a deposit now forming. 

 Compared with specimens brought up from less depth, those from the Swatch are 

 more compact, and show a more luminated and finer texture. 



Their color is also more uniform and unlike deposits that take place at ordinary 

 depths ; it is a greenish grey, similar to that of the peculiar slate to which it has 

 been compared. 



The Swatch has been supposed to be a circular basin, bottomless, though sur- 

 rounded with sands and shoal waters. Capt. Lloyd however suspects that shoal 

 water is not to be found to seaward, and he was disposed to countenance the opinion 

 that this trough may be occasioned by the back currents caused in the Bay by the 

 two great currents from the Hoogly and Megna between which it is situated ; but 

 the number of other outlets from the Sundarbands by which a great portion of 

 Gangetic waters escape opposite to the Swatch, and the absence of any general 

 retrocession of currents between the estuaries of the two great rivers, induced him 

 to repose little confidence in the opinion. 



It may however be remarked in favor of the above opinion, that Capt. Lloyd's 

 observations were made dui'ing the dry season, when the peculiar influence of the 

 rivers on the Bay may be supposed to be least. At all events we must ascribe the 

 Swatch to a comparative interruption of deposits at the spot, and if the force of the 

 two great bodies of fresh water falling into the Bay from two parallel directions be 

 sufficient during the rains to cause an opposite current of sea water to rush back 

 between them, a trough similar to the Swatch would be the natural consequence. 



We might even conceive the volume of sea water which would be thus driven back 

 by the impetuosity of the two great river currents, to be so assisted by the S. W. 

 monsoon and the peculiar conformation of the Bay, as to overcome the compara- 

 tively weaker currents from the Sundarbands opposite to the Swatch, directing them 

 on either side to the currents from the two great rivers. 



The following extract of a letter from Dr. Cantor, dated Cape, 17th 

 January, 1833, was read. 



Cape, 17th January, 1838. 



"I have spoken to Sir J. Herschel, ahout our museum, and I hope that your plan 

 of exchange may by and bye be realized • it will however take sometime, because the 

 Cape museum is very poor in every branch, except in the ornithological. A single, 

 half-cleaned skull of a rhinoceros was the only osteological preparation I observed. 

 As for a skull of the Hippopotamus, Sir John told me that he has constantly been 

 looking out for one but without success ; in the Cape district they are nearly ex- 

 tinct and although they swarm in the interior, the dutch Boors cannot be prevailed 

 upon to preserve any other part of the skull but the tushes. 1 am about making 

 out a list of such duplicates which I know you are anxious to get rid of, and Sir 

 John, who embarks for England two months hence, is going to give the list to M. 

 Valette the curator. 



He inquired very anxiously about the fossils, which Mr. Pope (he was never able 

 to find him out to deliver your message) discovered at the Cape (query where ?) of 

 course I could not tell more than I had heard from yourself, and the short note in 

 your Journal. The following anecdote will I think prove of interest to you. In the 

 interior is found a great number of isolated blocks of iron, which Sir J. by analysis 

 found to contain nickel, and they are meteoric, of course. Some time ago Captain 

 Alexander brought samples of iron from an ore in the interior which Sir John 

 found also to contain nickel, and to be identical with meteoric iron. So addio to 

 all theories upon the formation of * meteoric' iron. You will however in a short 

 time see more about it from Europe. 



* It struck us as resembling more in colour and texture the greenish clay ejected 

 from the mud volcanos of Rdtnri island, see Foley's Desc. J. A. S. IV., 28.— Ed. 



