120 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
1. General information and alert intelligence without a philo- 
sophical basis, or a scientific method of verification. 2. The art 
of public speaking, considered merely as an instrument of moving 
masses of ignorant men with a view to political advancement, and 
not necessarily connected either with noble motives, earnest purpose, 
or business habits. 3. The exercise of a dexterous logic, which 
aimed at the ingenious, the striking, and the plausible, rather 
than the true, the solid, and the judicious. 4. A theory of meta- 
physics, which, by confounding knowledge with sensation, and 
subordinating the general to the particular, made wisdom consist 
rather in the urgent use of present opportunity than in the moulding 
of materials according to an intellectual principle. 5. A theory of 
morals, which, by basing right on convention, not on nature, de- 
prived our sensual and animal instincts of the strong control of 
reason, and substituted for the eternal instinct of justice in the 
human heart the arbitrary enactments of positive law, whose ulti- 
mate sanction is the intelligent selfishness of the individual. 
3. An Account of some peculiarly-shaped Mineral Con- 
cretions found near Carlisle. By Henry Barnes, M.D. 
Communicated by Sir David Brewster. 
I have very great pleasure in presenting to the Society’s museum 
a few very peculiarly-shaped stones or mineral concretions found 
near Carlisle, similar in external characters to those fairy stones 
found in Elwand Water, near Melrose, and described at a meeting 
of this Society, held 5th February 1866, by Sir D. Brewster. These 
stones or nodules were found about twenty years ago embedded in 
marl in a deep cutting at Wreay, five miles south of Carlisle, during 
the 'formation of the Lancaster and Carlisle Bailway. They were 
found in great numbers by the workmen, but only in this particular 
cutting, and excited a great deal of curiosity at the time, but were 
soon laid aside and forgotten ; and it was not until the account of 
those fairy stones described by Sir D. Brewster appeared, that my 
esteemed relative, Dr T. Barnes, F.R.S.E., remembered that he had 
them in his possession, and asked me to present them to the Society. 
They are all of a light colour, presenting a smooth surface, and 
inodorous when dry. When breathed upon they emit an argil- 
laceous odour. They vary in weight from two to seven ounces. 
