550 
MODIFICATIONS OF THE PILE OF VOLTA. 
ian war . — Several gentlemen from the 
manufacturing districts professed their 
anxiety to aid the views of the Asiatic 
Society, in establishing the proposed 
Committee. 
Section G.~MECHANICAL 
SCIENCE. 
The sitting of the section occupied 
but a short time, during which two pa- 
pers were read, one of some interest, by 
Mr. Henwood, on Naval Architecture, 
and a second by Mr. Coosham on cer- 
tain improvements in Napier’s rods. 
Dr. Daubeny also exhibited an ingeni- 
ous instrument for taking up sea water 
from any given depth, for the purpose 
of chemical analysis, being an improve- 
ment of an admirable invention for that 
purpose sent out in the Bonite. 
EVENING MEETING. 
In consequence of the incessant rain, 
the intended promenade and horticul- 
tural exhibition at Miller’s Gardens was 
abandoned, and notice given that the 
Geological, Statistical, and Mechanical 
Sections would meet in the evening. 
In the Geological Section, Dr. Hare, 
of Philadelphia, entered upon a history 
of the many modifications of the Pile of 
Volta, and in particular drew attention 
to a form of it, devised, and long since 
described by himself, but which he 
conceived had not in a sufficient degree 
attracted the attention of European phi- 
losophers. His apparatus is compact, 
portable,and, what is a capital advantage, 
admits in an instant, and by the sim- 
plest manipulation, of being put in 
action, and having this action suspend- 
ed. A prodigious quantity of acid is thus 
saved, which would otherwise go to 
waste, and the operator is enabled to 
avail himself, as often as he chooses, of 
that superior influence which is so well 
known to be manifested by the pile at 
the first instant of its excitation. Dr- 
Hare concluded by the exhibition of 
some striking experiments illustrative 
of the igniting or deflagrating efficacy 
of his Voltaic arrangements. 
Prof. Philips followed with an account 
of the distribution over the northern 
parts of England of Blocks or Boulders. 
The Association, he observed, had for- 
merly proposed a question regarding 
this distribution, and the present was a 
partial attempt at its solution ; and it |i 
was interesting both to the geologist and ( 
the geographer, as it involved the effects 
of running water in modifying the surface ' 
of a country. In glancing over the north 
of England, we find a great variety of 
rock formations, from the oldest slates 
to the newer tertiary ; the country gene- ' 
rally slopes to the east, with the excep- j 
tion of the group of Cumbrian moun- j 
tains, which form a local conical zone, ji 
One striking feature in its physical f 
geography, is an immense valley running j 
north and south, and passing through a j| 
great variety of formations; the Wolds 
of York being chalk, of Whitby oolite, j 
the vale of York new red sandstone, | 
while the carboniferous rocks are dis- 
played in Northumberland and Durham, 
All the country from the Tyne to the ■ 
Humber is covered with the transported | 
boulders, many of which are of rocks | 
quite different from any near the spots j 
'where they occur, and some even not i 
recognizable as British rocks. Could | 
Mr. Lyell’s ideas regarding the office of j 
icebergs be true, that they had been the | 
means of transporting gravel to distant j 
places? Boulders of the S hap Fell gra- 
nite had been found in the south-eastern 
part of Yorkshire? in the interior, there 
were great acurnulations of them in many 
places ; their directions seemed all to 
converge to a certain point, in what is 
termed the Pennine chain, but on this 
chain no boulders have been observed, 
except at one point, from which you 
look tow'^ards Shap Fell ; towards the 
north they have been drifted nearly as 
far as Carlisle, but there is no trace of 
them towards the west. We also may 
find boulders from Garrick Fell carried 
to Newcastle and the Yorkhire coast, 
and these have been drifted over the 
same point of Stainmoor. Mr. Philips 
gave several conflicting opinions of dif- 
ferent geologists, to account for this ex- 
traordinary transportion ; the bursting 
of the banks of lakes; the alternate 
elevation and depression of mountain 
chains, and the supposition that the en- 
tire country had been under the s ea, 
when the distribution of boulders had 
taken place. — Mr. Sedgwdck then rose, 
and remarked that the direction of 
transport of the blocks may have been 
modified by the surface over which they 
were carried ; and that Sir James Hall 
