1839.] Asiatic Society. 691 



I also send a piece of charred wood, I found it in a position which makes me attach to 

 it some importance. I discovered it in a bed of firm blue clay beneath successive strata 

 of sand and clay, and some twelve or fourteen feet from the surface. The site exter- 

 nally is a swelling hillock. But the most extraordinary circumstance attending this 

 specimen is, that while it was imbedded in and beneath strata that must have been 

 deposited while the surface was exposed to repeated inundations, if not uninterrup- 

 tedly overflowed, there are what I take to be undoubted marks of heat and fusion — not 

 merely in the wood being charred— but in a. fused crust an inch or two above where 

 the wood lay. This crust generally speaking is not the thickness of two rupees : but is 

 spread as regularly as any of the layers of clay and sand. I observed however that it 

 seemed to run as fused matter generally does, making its way into crevices, and 

 gathering into a mass. But what satisfies me more strongly of the fused origin of this 

 crust, is that just above the charred wood — an inch or two, — it appears to have 

 trickled in a state of fusion through the clay, making a hole for itself scarcely 

 a quarter of an inch wide. I send specimens of the clay, the crust, and of that portion 

 of the clay, through which the fusion ran. I suppose that the heat from the fused 

 liquid above was sufficient to char the wood. Willing to send you the specimen as 

 entire as possible, I have not scraped it or cleared it so as to ascertain the appearances 

 of the wood. 



There are also some smaller specimens of what I suppose to be quondam shell-fish. 

 One I am told is a muscle — if a shell, it is at all events a bivalve : the two shells sepa- 

 rate — and the one is flossy looking. These shells I found also in a strata of clay and 

 sand more or less hard — and it seems odd, that when broken, they emit a strong sul- 

 phureous smell. I am too ignorant on such subj ects to know whether these things have 

 any value; you will judge when you see them, and if worth while, I should be glad, if 



you offered them to the Society. 



I am 



Yours very sincerely, 



A. SCONCE. 



Before the Meeting broke up Dr. O'Shaughnessy, exhibited several Photogenic 

 drawings prepared by himself, and in which a solution of gold was the agent employed. 

 A more detailed notice of the experiments described will appear in a subsequent 

 number. 



[We cannot dismiss the subject of the Proceedings of the October Meeting, without 

 adverting to their having been distinguished by the first exhibition in the Society's 

 apartments of Colonel M'Leod's, magnificent model of the Nizamut Palace of 

 Moorshedabad. We strongly recommend all those who can value a first rate practical 

 lesson in classical architecture to visit this triumph of taste and skill. Aided by 

 the " Report by the Surveying Committee," published in our last number, the visitor 

 can acquire by an hour's study more correct ideas on some of the noblest features 

 of the Orders observed in this structure, than he could derive by any amount of study, 

 from books or plates, or could gain without great difficulty, even from the building 

 itself.— Eds.] 



