PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL & POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY 
$f tfje WU»U1X(0inq of gorfcsljfr*, 
AT THE FORTIETH MEETING, HELD IN THE LECTURE ROOM 
OF THE HALIFAX PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY 
SOCIETY, ON THURSDAY, JUNE 6TH, 1850. 
The Rev. William Turner, having been voted to the 
Chair, introduced the business of the meeting in an appro- 
priate address, and regretted the unavoidable absence of the 
Venerable Archdeacon Musgrave, and John Waterhouse, 
Esq., F.R.S., the President of the Philosophical Society, 
both of whom took a warm interest in the proceedings of 
the Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West Riding 
of Yorkshire. He had long watched with pleasure its 
operations — and noticed the various important communica- 
tions which had been brought before its meetings, and he 
was glad to find that two subjects of such great interest as 
the Electric Light and Dia-Magnetism would be brought 
before them that day, and especially the former of these 
communications. He believed it was the intention of Mr. 
Dresser to describe a new and economic process for pro- 
ducing this extraordinary phenomenon, which he considered 
a great desideratum; as, in too many scientific discoveries, 
however apparently beneficial in their object, the expense 
involved was such as to place them beyond the reach of 
most persons, and it consequently acted as a check to their 
ever becoming generally useful to the public at large, which 
VOL. III. H 
