SECOND REPORT— 1832 . 
^14 
northern section of Scotland, including the Brora coal-field; 
and the whole Alpine section (by far the most important and 
instructive part of the whole), I am indebted to my friend Mr. 
Murchison, the present President of the Geological Society, 
whose recent contributions to our science have so abundantly 
vindicated his claim to our highest office; his laborious, exact, 
and scientific surveys of the Alpine chains, of which a specimen 
is thus presented, are especially a credit to the English school 
of geologists. Oeynhausen and Dechen have been my authori¬ 
ties for the central portion of the section. 
A scale of one degree of a great circle of the globe is given 
with the section, which however is to be understood only as an 
approximation and not strictly to be applied throughout, as 
some portions, especially in the Alpine districts, have been 
given on a somewhat larger scale to display the phsenomena. 
No regular scale of elevations has been attempted: to have 
adopted such a scale would have reduced the English chains to 
imperceptible undulations, or exaggerated the Alps into pro¬ 
portions most inconvenient for the purposes of the section. 
Report on the Recent Progress and Present State of Chemical 
Science.* By James F. W. Johnston, A.M. &c. 
Introduction. — The science of Chemistry is every year so 
greatly enlarging its dominion over nature, and adding to the 
already vast accumulation of facts it embraces,—and to this ad¬ 
vance so many minds contribute, and in so many different places, 
that few even of those who devote themselves exclusively to 
chemical research can keep pace with its progress or make 
themselves acquainted with the experimental results continually 
published in various languages by its numerous votaries. The 
scientific journals of our own country might be expected to dimi¬ 
nish this difficulty, by presenting in an English dress a summary, 
at least, of the results of foreign experimenters; but want of en¬ 
couragement chiefly has hitherto confined these channels of in- 
* The following Report has undergone considerable alterations since the 
Oxford Meeting, at which it was read. This has been rendered necessary chiefly 
by the publication, in the interim, of the fourth edition of Dr. Turner’s Chemistry . 
Many facts which are already incorporated with that work have been omitted, 
and little more than a notice given of several recent investigations which were 
previously treated of in detail. Some isolated facts which may appear of minor 
importance have found a place because they are not yet to be met with in our 
chemical works. 
