1837.] British Association for the advancement of Science* 423 



British Association for the advancemennt of Science. 

 Sixth Meeting. 



The 'sixth meeting of this Association, held at Bristol, has been 

 highly satisfactory in every respect, both as regards the number and 

 the eminence of the men of science who attended, the quantity and 

 value of the communications, and the zeal and cordiality which were 

 manifested. A general outline of the proceedings has been given in 

 the daily and weekly papers : we shall, we conceive, best promote the 

 interest of science by reserving our pages as last year for authentic and 

 official details. We may, however, just notice the subjects of two of 

 the communications, on account of the lively interest which they ex- 

 cited.* 



On the change in the chemical character of Minerals induced by 

 Galvanism. — By R. W. Fox. 



Mr. Fox mentioned the fact, long known to miners, of metalliferous 

 veins intersecting different rocks containing ore in some of these rocks, 

 and being nearly barren or entirely so in others. This circumstance 

 suggested the idea of some definite cause ; and his experiments on the 

 electrical magnetic condition of metalliferous veins, and also on the 

 electric conditions of various ores to each other, seemed to have sup- 

 plied an answer, in as much as it was thus proved that electro-magne- 

 tism was in a state of great activity under the earth's-surface ; and that 

 it was independent of mere local action between the plates of copper 

 and the ore with which they were in contact, was shown by the occa- 

 sional substitution of plates of zinc for those of copper producing no 

 change in the direction of the voltaic currents. He also referred to other 

 experiments, in which two different varieties of copper ore, with water 

 taken from the same mine, as the only exciting fluid, produced consi- 

 derable voltaic action. The various kinds of saline matter which he 

 had detected in water taken from different mines, and from different 

 parts of the same mine, seemed to indicate another probable source of 



♦ Influenced by the same feelings which actuate the Editor of the PMlosojrtical Magazine, 

 We have abstained from alluding to the Proceedings of the Association, further than to 

 give the above extracts. When the authentic reports reach us, we shall give such an ac- 

 count of the volume, in successive numbers of this Journal, as will afford our readers a 

 view of the present state of Science, in its various branches. By thus treating the annual 

 publication of the Association, we shall be enabled to keep pace with the advance of 

 knowledge, and to impart to our readers, not our own feeble ideas, but the statements of 

 those leviathans of science, who have been selected by a congress of all the learned men 

 of the British Isles, to report on the present state and prospects of Science, and the de- 

 siderata to which the attention of its cultivators should be directed.— Editor Madras 

 Journal, 



