62 
electrolytic action upon the water giving rise to oxydation, or 
to the evolution of hydrogen at the surface of the copper, accord- 
ing as it is positively or negatively electrified, relatively to the 
earth at the spot. 
“ I had observed the same difference as to insulating power, 
for positive and negative charges, at Keyham, the cable being 
dry, and therefore think that the electrolytic explanation is 
either insufficient, or implies a very remarkable electrolytic 
action on gutta percha itself, or on pitch, or possibly moisture 
in crevasses. 
“ In some experiments on artificial faults placed in basons of 
sea water, I have paid particular attention to the green and 
white incrustations, observed according as the current is from 
imperfectly protected wire to water or the reverse. The latter 
is very remarkable, and appears like an exudation on the bark 
of a tree, when the fault consists of a minute incision or aper- 
ture. In the last case there is always a fine passage or crater 
in the middle, by which bubbles of hydrogen escape.” 
A Paper by James Cockle, M.A., F.R.A.S., &c., entitled 
“ Researches in the Higher Algebra,” was read by the Rev. 
R. Harley, F.R.A.S. 
“ The author, after adverting to the complexity of the results 
of the higher algebra, proceeds to simplify some of them. For 
this purpose he employs a set of canonical functions of the 
unreal fifth roots of unity, and a certain system of six-valued 
functions of the roots of an equation of the fifth degree. 
Availing himself of one of the trinomial forms to which Mr. 
Jerrard and Sir W. R. Hamilton have shown that the general 
quintic may be reduced, he has, by an indirect process, 
succeeded in obtaining the actual expression for the equation 
of the sixth degree to which that system leads. The resulting 
sextic is of a simple and, viewed by the light of Mr. Jerrard’s 
discoveries, of a comparatively general form. So that the paper 
may be considered as presenting, on the one hand, the type of 
