27 
solve it rapidly ; and the beautiful frosted appearance seen on articles 
manufactured of aluminium is produced by plunging them for a short 
time in a solution of potass at blood heat, and then immersing them 
in nitric acid. 
It will easily be seen that a metal possessing the properties above 
described will be capable of many applications, and aluminium has 
already been employed in the manufacture of a great number of articles. 
Its chief use, however, wdll probably be in the production of alloys, 
as it gives increased hardness to whatever metal it is used with. An 
alloy of 3 parts aluminium, and 97 parts iron, has the brilliancy 
of pure silver, and does not tarnish. 100 parts silver, and 5 parts 
aluminium, form an alloy as hard as sterling silver, and as easily 
worked as the pure metal. Copper, with a quarter of its weight of 
aluminium, gives an alloy of the colour of gold, and very malleable. 
With 20 per cent, of aluminium the alloy is white ; and a mixture of 
90 parts copper, and 10 parts aluminium, is harder than bronze, and 
has been used for the works of clocks and watches. Calvert describes 
an alloy of 15 aluminium and 78 iron, which does not rust in moist 
air, or water. 
April 2. — The Rev. J. Kenrick read a paper on the Rev. Mr. 
M’Enery’s researches in Kent’s Hole, near Torquay. Kent’s Hole is 
a fissure in the limestone rock, which belongs to the Old Red Sand¬ 
stone formation. Its floor is covered with a stalagmitic deposit, under 
which lies a bed of mud and gravel, brought in by a flood of water. 
According to Mr. M’Enery the various contents of the cave follow 
each other in this order, proceeding downwards from the surface. 
First, black pottery, with traces of the lathe, human teeth and bones, 
beads, bone pins, and other articles, belonging to the Romano-British 
period, when the Romans had an encampment on the down above the 
cave. Lower down were found arrows and spear heads of flint, and 
stone axes, among fossil teeth and bones of herbivorous and carnivorous 
animals, but no pottery or other w^orks of art; lowest of all the bed 
of diluvial mud, containing merely animal remains, but no works of 
art, except some flint instruments adhering to its upper surface. Mr. 
M’Enery’s description of the succession of deposits, however, has 
been called in question by a geologist of great eminence, Mr. Godwin 
Austen, who maintains, that the human remains and the arrow heads 
and knives of flint, occur promiscuously with the bones of the extinct 
animals in all parts of the cave, and through the entire thickness of 
