After a brief allusion to the importance of catalogues of stars in general, as the foundation of exact astronomy, the circumstances connected with the publication of the important Catalogue of Stars by the British Association were mentioned.

Many of the materials were well known to be imperfect at the time of printing, but that step, it was thought, would strongly induce all astronomers to improve the defective portions.

The author commenced by alluding to his analysis of amidomeconic acid in a previous paper, and to the objections urged against the formula he had assigned to it.

By referring to his former analyses, and to a later one, he showed that the empirical formula of the acid could not be that suggested by Messrs Wurtz and Gerhardt, but that his results could only lead to that which he had formerly given, namely—

C84 H89 O78 N7.

The first of the moraines referred to is in Glensluan, a valley near Strachur, about two miles and a half in length, and two-thirds of a mile in breadth. It is bounded on the east, west, and south sides by mountains from 800 to 2000 feet in height. At the north or lower end, where it opens into Glen Eck, there is a series of mounds of clay and gravel, crossing the valley like embankments, and spread over a space of about 1800 feet in length, and from 350 to 600 in breadth.

In various parts of Western Africa it appears to be the practice to subject to the ordeal by poison persons who come under suspicion of having committed heinous crimes. On the banks of the Gambia river the poison used for the purpose is the bark of a leguminous tree, the Fillœa suaveolens of MM. Guillemin and Perottet. In the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone it is the bark of Erythrophleum guinëense, which some botanists have considered identical with the former species. On the Congo river, Captain Tuckey found that either this species, or an allied species of the same genus, was in constant use for the same purpose.

The author stated that when he commenced these experiments, in 1832, his object was to ascertain, first, what effect different diseases had on the constitution of the blood; and, secondly, what effect various therapeutic agents had on that fluid in a state of health and of disease. As the experiments of Andral and others, published since these experiments were commenced, had done much to elucidate many points of the first subject of inquiry, the author limited this communication to a small portion of the latter inquiry.

“The accessibility of the glaciers, even up to a considerable height, is at this season a question of mere physical force. I have made within the last few days two excursions into the region of perpetual snow. The first of these was on the 6th of January, and was to the summit of the glacier of Blaitière, several hundred feet above the point where I had noted the line of the névé in September and October; the second was on the 13th, when I succeeded in reaching the junction of the glaciers of Bossons and Tacconaz, near the Grands Mulets. This junction is exactly at the commencement of the névé, as I remarked between the months of August and October, on six different occasions, when I passed there on my way to and from Mont Blanc, the Dôme de Gouté, &c.

When, as in the usual operation, the moon's observed zenith distance is corrected for the effects of atmospheric refraction, the zenith distance so obtained is that of the rectilineal part of the ray of light between the planet and the upper surface of the air; and on applying that correction, as at the Observatory, we do not obtain the direction of the moon as it would have been seen if there had been no atmosphere, but that of a line drawn parallel to the first part of the ray, and therefore passing below the moon.

This paper is written in continuation of a series of papers, of which six sections have already been published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

It commences with some articles supplementary to the first six sections, and intended to apply to the theoretical principles contained in them to the extensive and precise experimental data which have been obtained in the course of the last two years.

The author remarks that the existence of Annelida during the Palæozoic formations is manifested in two conditions. In the one, we have the shelly envelope which invests the order Tubicola, in the form of Seapolites; and in the other, the tracks of the orders Abranchia and Dorsi-branchiata are found impressed on deposits which were, at one time, in a sufficiently soft state to receive the impressions of the wanderings of these animals.

Among the strata which have hitherto afforded annelid tracks, those which, in the county of Clare, represent a portion of the equivalents of the Millstone Grit, contain such tracks, in their most perfect state of preservation in great abundance; and these strata also furnish evidence concerning the circumstances which prevailed during their deposition.

The object of this paper was to defend the method of demonstration employed by Euclid from some of the charges which have been at various times brought against it. In particular, it was shown that the method is not deficient in variety of demonstration of the same fact. This position was illustrated by the exhibition of twelve totally different demonstrations of the problem, “To cut three-fourths of a square into four pieces which shall form a square.”

The Rottlera tinctoria is a large tree which is found distributed over the whole Indian peninsula, and is particularly abundant in the hill jungles of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar. The fruit, which is about the size of a pea, is covered with curious stellate hairs and red glands, which are easily separated by rubbing, and form without further preparation the colouring matter which is sold in the bazaars. It is a perfectly uniform brick-dust coloured powder, which repels water, and is scarcely soluble in that fluid. Alcohol and ether extract a red colouring matter, as do also the alkalies and their carbonates.

These experiments were made with the view of ascertaining and registering the judgments of the eye with respect to colours, and then, by a comparison of the results with each other, by means of a graphical construction, testing the accuracy of that theory of the vision of colour which analyses the colour-sensation into three elements, while it recognises no such triple division in the nature of light, before it reaches the eye.

“I have lately had the opportunity of examining a series of fossils from high arctic latitudes, brought home by Captain M'Lintock, R.N. The series in one sense is extensive, as there are Silurian and oolitic shells, and also other fossils of the tertiary times. Among these last there are some things which, I am sure, will be of interest to you. Among the specimens are some recent and living shells from Baring's Island, of which I will send you a list when I determine the species.

After alluding to the excessive difficulty of ascertaining the presence and nature of a resisting medium in space, by planetary or cometary perturbations, the author reminded the meeting of the statements made in those rooms last year, that one of the consequences to which the dynamical theory of heat had led him, was the necessity of the existence of a medium filling space; that such medium was but an extension of our own atmosphere, and must experience a condensation in the neighbourhood of the sun; and that there must consequently arise a certain refraction of any heavenly body seen through such medium.

The object of this communication was to combat the current theory of vision, as exercised by vertebrate animals, in so far as it teaches that the light which reaches the retina from without, thereafter passes through that membrane, and is absorbed by the pigment of the choroid behind it.

The author in this paper gives the details of an examination of the compounds obtained by the action of ammonia on some of the oils and fats.

The method employed was to mix one volume of the oil, two volumes alcohol, and four volumes of strong aqua ammoniæ in a stoppered bottle, and placing it in a moderately warm situation, the stopper being tied down. Occasional agitation is required. After a time, varying with the oil employed, there is formed a whitish solid matter, which increases in amount as the oil diminishes. Finally, the whole becomes nearly solid.

The author stated that he had examined, more or less minutely, nearly 300 fresh-water gatherings, and that he had found in these very nearly all the known British species, besides a number not yet described. He mentioned that, from the want of figures, it was often difficult to know whether a form were new or not. Thus, Pinnularia latestriata, found by the author two years since in the Mull earth, had been considered as a new species by all British naturalists, as well as several foreign ones; yet in Ehrenberg's last work, “Mikrogeologie” it is figured as P. borealis, and as having been described by Ehrenberg ten or twelve years ago. The papers of that author, in the Berlin Reports and Transactions, are not generally accessible.

In this short paper, the author presented facts, from which he thought himself entitled to infer that the Silurian mountain tract of southern Scotland falls entirely into his views regarding ancient glacial operations in the country generally, as expounded in a paper read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in December 1852, and published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for April 1853. He showed that the compact boulder clay, which he regards as the detritus of the early and general glaciation of the country, exists in the valleys of this district, and in passes amongst the hills, up to those of Glenlude and Tweedshaws, which are respectively 1152 and 1352 feet above the mean level of the sea.

The following pages are intended merely as a preliminary notice of an investigation, which has occupied me for some time past, and which, though still too incomplete for publication in full, is sufficiently advanced to render obvious the general character of the results, although, from the extensive and elaborate nature of the inquiry, a very considerable time must elapse before it is complete in all the requisite details.

In this paper the author shows that Cinchonine by distillation with potash, undergoes a very complex decomposition, and that instead of yielding one base, as has hitherto been supposed, gives at least seven.

The mode of research at first adopted was to convert the basic liquid into platinum salt, and separate the bases by fractional crystallization in the manner described in his paper “On the Presence of Pyridine in the Naphtha produced by destructive distillation of the Bituminous shale of Dorsetshire.”