420 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
lie found on the coast of Antrim, not far from Portrush : one an 
ochrous basalt, apparently undergoing decomposition ; another con- 
taining fossil shells, but a dubious basalt ; and a third containing 
bladders of compressed liquid. “ This basalt,” he says, “ contains 
small cavities in its interior, many of them full of fresh water, 
which gushes out when the stone is broken by the hammer, as if it 
had been in a state of compression.” Here we have, I apprehend, 
one of the earliest notices of the presence of liquids in the interior 
of perfectly solid minerals. 
In 1791 Dr Hutton explains the cause of the flexibility of the 
Brazilian stone, or flexible sandstone. “When a stone,” says he, 
“ of any considerable thickness is said to have flexibility, we are 
led to think that here is something very extraordinary, and we 
wish to know upon what depends that quality, nowise proper to a 
stone.” Accordingly he set about inquiring, and, after being for 
some time much puzzled with his problem, he considers that the pro- 
perty is owing to a certain structure, recognisable only with the aid 
of the microscope, constituted by minute particles of thin mica 
thickly disseminated through the mass, and always parallel to one 
another, by which a certain jointed character is given to the stone. 
The Rev. Mr Christopher Tait, minister of Kincardine on Forth, 
has delineated with much care the condition in 1792 of the great 
Flanders and Kincardine mosses in Stirlingshire and the adjacent 
eastward coasts of the Firth. Extending on both sides of the Firth, 
from the line of Kincardine westward as far up the Carse of Stir- 
ling as Cardross, the unredeemed desert of peat covered in 1770 a 
territory 22 miles long, between three-fourths of a mile and 
seven miles wide, and not less probably than 30,000 acres, assum- 
ing an average width of two miles, which I take to be within the 
mark. He describes the composition of the moss, notices an ancient 
corduroy road through part of it, shows that at one time its place 
must have been occupied by a forest of great trees, proves that 
these had been mostly cut, probably by the early Roman invaders, 
in order to destroy a retreat and place of assembly for their native 
enemies, and gives a good succinct account of the famous design 
of Lord Karnes, which had been in successful operation during 
twenty-two years, for clearing away the peat, uncovering the under- 
lying soil, and converting the moss into agricultural fields. I wish 
