A simple electrostatic model has been used to demonstrate that the inner surface hydroxyls in kaolinite, dickite and nacrite are responsible for the interlayer bonding in these minerals. The contribution to the interlayer bonding of an individual hydroxyl hydrogen depends on the orientation of the hydroxyl group relative to the 1:1 layer since this orientation determines the H—O interlayer distance. If this distance is much greater than the sum of the van der Waals radii, 2·60 Å, there is essentially no bond. As the distance becomes less than 2·60 Å, the strength of the interlayer bond increases.

Clay minerals from shale outcrops of the Lower Cretaceous Buckinghorse Formation (4250 ft thick) were investigated in order to assess their degree of diagenesis and their oil-generating potential. Crystallinity index, sharpness ratio, per cent of illite which is the 2M polymorph and presence of discrete minerals have been studied in the whole clay fraction, while the very fine clay fraction has been subjected to X-ray diffraction, differential thermal, thermogravimetric, differential thermogravimetric, i.r. spectroscopy, surface area and chemical analyses. With information derived from these studies and from published data, a classification scheme was devised which relates variation of clay mineralogy to diagenetic stages and burial depth.

Data on the < 2 μm size fraction show that the crystallinity index decreases while the sharpness ratio and per cent of illite which is the 2M polymorph increase with burial depth. Results on the <0·08 μm fraction reveal that a three-component interstratified clay mineral exists. In addition, Fourier transform calculations and chemical and physicochemical analyses indicate that both the ratio of the amounts of non-hydrated clays (illite) to hydrated clays and the K2O content of clays increase with burial depth; cation exchange capacity and surface area decrease with burial depth.

Based upon a classification scheme, which was devised by combining criteria and data derived from the studies of Weaver (1961a), Kubier (1966), Burst (1969) and Dunoyer de Seconzac (1970), the upper and middle parts of the formation (upper 3250 ft) fall within the middle stage of diagenesis whereas the lower part (1000 ft) is allocated to the beginning of late diagenesis. In terms of Burst’s (1969) work, the upper 3250 ft are transitional between the stability and dehydration zones indicating that, prior to uplift, hydrocarbons may have been in the process of migration. The lower 10000 ft of the formation are in the restricted dehydration zone, indicating that hydrocarbon migration should have been completed.

K-saturated kaolinite was titrated in 13 different solvents with tetrabutylammonium hydroxide using a combination electrode for potentiometric determination. The titer of base required to reach the final potentiometric endpoint was dependent on the solvent and increased according to the following solvent order in both the presence and absence of excess neutral salt: methanol ⩽ water < ethanol ⩽ 1-propanol < 1-butanol < 2-propanol < DMF < t-butanol < DMSO < pyridine ⩽ acetonitrile ⩽ methylethyl ketone < acetone. With the protic solvents, titratable acidity increased according to decreasing dielectric constant of the solvent and increasing size and/or branching of the aliphatic constituent. The largest titratable acidities were obtained in the dipolar aprotic solvents with negligible basic character (e.g., acetonitrile, acetone, methylethyl ketone). These results are discussed in terms of solvent properties, solvation characteristics of ions in the solvents, and acid-base behavior of crystalline edge sites.

The influence of pressure on the conductance of frozen montmorillonite suspensions was measured in the temperature range from 0°C to − 12°C on Na- and Ca-saturated samples. Pressures invariably increase the conductance of frozen suspensions. The change in conductance with pressure is postulated to be due to pressure melting of the ice in the frozen suspension. From swelling pressure data the increase in unfrozen water with pressure at constant temperature is calculated and shown to be consistent with the effect of pressure on conductance.

The presence of Al-bearing goethites has been unequivocally established in Venezuelan laterite sediments by means of infrared spectroscopy (IR), chemical dissolution, and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) methods. The composition of these samples ranges from [Fe0.89Al0.11]O(OH) to [Fe0.76Al0.24]O(OH). The data of dissolution experiments using a modified dithionite (CDB) treatment suggest a parallel behavior between Fe and Al; the gradual dissolution of Al is associated with the destruction of the Al-containing goethite. The interpretation of the CDB dissolution results for SiO2/Fe2O3 is different; silica was only slightly extracted from phases other than goethite. Substitution of Fe3+ by Al3+ in these goethites was represented on the XRD patterns by a lowering of the (110) and (111) reflections corresponding to a reduction in size of the unit cell of goethite. IR spectroscopy showed the formation of such solid solutions by a shift of the 405 cm−1 absorption band, assigned to v (Fe-O) in synthetic goethite, to >460 cm−1 in the spectrum of Al-bearing natural goethite. Moreover, this spectrum shows a shift of the 3140 cm−1 absorption, due to v (OH), to higher frequencies, indicating a H-bond weakening in [FexAl(1−x)]O(OH) compared to FeO(OH).

Do not believe that the philosophy that has reached us through the writings of Aristotle, Abû Nasr (al-Fârâbî), and the book of Healing (of Ibn Sinâ), will satisfy your longing; neither that any of the Andalusians has written anything adequate on this matter. For the men of superior understanding who lived in Andalusia before the spread of logic and philosophy in that country, devoted their lives to the mathematical sciences…; but could do nothing more…” Ibn Tufayl, Hayy ibn Yaqzân, p. 12.

Much remains to be done by way of determining exactly the ways in which Arab thought penetrated Western Islam-I refer both to its sociological extension and the depth of its psycho-cultural effect. The question thus posed is of considerable historical importance, above all if one wishes to cover the whole period from the beginning of the Eighth Century (i.e. the end of the First/beginning of the Second Century of the Hegira), up to the present day. In fact, the spread of Arab thought to the Maghreb, and its penetration in depth, was accelerated again after the reconquest of the politically autonomous areas. This situation lends our research a certain topicality, whence spring both advantages and disadvantages: there is the advantage of historical knowledge not being limited to an erudite accumulation of facts about a past that has no links with any extant community; yet there is the problem that it is hard not to evoke the past in order to justify present ideological ventures.

Romanticism fabricated a poet of vast oracular powers largely from superstitious notions and suspicious philosophies which the Renaissance had gathered up somewhat by chance with the rational part of the Graeco-Roman legacy. The model was surely an imposture and, historically considered, a scandal. Seer, sage, prophet, mage—the pretensions varied, but all were titles to transcendent disclosure in times increasingly committed, at least officially, to a unified scientific view. That the poet could be confirmed to any degree in this anachronistic role was probably owing to the circumstance that the general cultural reflex following the Enlightenment reawakened widespread interest in those dark and excluded passages of the human spirit which mystics and seers were thought to frequent. Poets who pretended to voyance benefited from the muffled but persistent rumor of profound mysteries accessible to the high priests of Kabbala and the Corpus Hermeticum, to Illuminists, Rosicrucians, and Neopythagoreans. Western Europe had never ceased to acknowledge, even in such unlikely periods as the later Middle Ages, the aboriginal priestly and prophetic functions of the poet; but romanticism contrived—out of occultism and neoplatonism, antirationalism and anticlassicism—such a warrant for unabashed oracular saying as Antiquity had scarcely imagined. While perhaps none of the romantic was actually prepared to grant the poet his ancient powers in full measure, few seemed inclined to diminish the stature of the heroic abstraction, who symbolically contested the claims of naturalism and positivism.

The childhood of humanity, the human race in its infancy: while this expression was in common use, there was probably no ground for seeking out the implementation of real symbols on each occasion on which it was used. Its very success having made it commonplace, a metaphor becomes a convenient and communal way of speaking which does not necessarily correspond to a way of thinking. But as soon as the formula seems to be out of date, is ceases retrospectively by this fact, to be commonplace. Or to be more exact, a triteness to which the common run of thought no longer adheres, begins in itself to pose a question: if the end of a stereotype is not a loss for scholarship, it is a spur to reflection. What a modification must take place in our rational apprehension of ourselves, what an alteration of the status, content and function of the ideas of humanity and of childhood, in order that the metaphor “the childhood of humanity” should in future have no explanatory power, and that having ceased to enlighten or to prove, it should have ceased to appear natural, in order to become obsolete. Since the image of the childhood of humanity was commonplace, what concatenation of evidence was the basis for this commonplaceness? What does the recourse to images of childhood mean, as related to the definitive confines of humanity? And what is the conception of human “becoming” which is backed up by the temporal and qualitative buttresses of a childhood?

Since 1940 I have been attempting to give a new orientation to the study of the early relations between Brazil and France. Preceding works have been limited to the examination of grandiose or picturesquely dramatic events—the piracy of the Normans in the Northeast, the Brazilian festival at Rouen, the repercussion of the French Revolution upon certain Brazilian revolutions such as the Inconfidencia Mineira or Villegaignon at Rio de Janeiro, the mission of French artists at the Brazilian court of Don João VI. Finally some interest has been shown in contacts with French scholars, among them Saint-Hilaire, and with Portuguese America; further interest has been evidenced in the influence which French scholars and artists exerted during the course of the nineteenth century upon the most cultivated people of Brazil.

This principle of the Torah as a living unit connects with the third principle we are now ready to discuss, that of the manifold and even infinite meanings of the Torah. The different limbs in the simile of the organism were frequently interpreted not as coordinate organs on the same level of importance, but as different layers of meaning, leading the mystical student of the Sacred Text from the outer and exoteric meaning to ever deeper strata of understanding. The idea of an organism becomes identified here with the idea of a living hierarchy of meanings.

The widespread and increasing vogue of astrology in France offers the spectacle of scientific popularization and esoteric speculation in full swing, with the two frequently intermingling. Disconcerting at first sight, this process must be placed within the framework of the social contradictions that have given rise to the rationalistic trends of “modernity.” As early as the Age of Enlightenment, occultism, as it spread, associated itself with natural science. In the nineteenth century this association continued, taking on new forms; it was now in connection with the history of religions and with Oriental studies that many magazines gave considerable space to occultism. From the Revue de Paris, where Nerval published his Aurélia, all the way over to the dignified Revue des deux mondes, the current seeped in a little everywhere. In our own day, while Planète is in the forefront, one must not lose sight of the outpouring of books and periodicals among which this publication is merely a particularly prominent commercial success. In this regard, astrology takes first place among all similar forms of speculation and occult practice that are merchandised in such fashion, in terms of its mass diffusion.

Man can be ‘good and evil’ in his actions, reasonable and unreasonable— not to say, insane: this is his liberty. Hence his responsibility, which is born of this liberty. There can be no liberty without responsibility.

The question: is Man rational in his actions? cannot be answered by a simple ‘yes’: that some of his actions are rational is proved by the very fact of our existence; that not all of these actions are rational is proved by our present situation. On the other hand, if we do not perish, this is no proof of Man's rationality. Nor is it proved by the evolution of all creation, which undoubtedly moves from low to high. But it is not difficult to see that of all living beings Man alone is capable of acting rationally. Where Man's reason does not reach, there rules the law of selection. This latter prevails, likewise, wherever Man acts irrationally. Out of a senseless ‘urge to be’-as Schopenhauer calls it-that being asserts himself who enjoys some kind of primacy, who is superior in no matter what sphere-whether by his force, velocity, protective colouring, or any other way, it does not matter, except in the individual case.

Sideromelane in Pleistocene lapilli-tuff rocks from the Golan Heights had partly altered into palagonite. X-ray and electron diffraction showed that the major part of the clay alteration product is composed of a dioctahedral micaceous mineral with well organized crystallinity along the a- and b-axes. Very poor basal reflections as well as incomplete expansion upon glycerolation and incomplete collapse upon heating were interpreted as being due to random interstratification with chlorite. Electron microscopy showed the particles to be very similar to montmorillonite tactoids. The thermal behavior as well as surface properties were similar to those of montmorillonite. Differential dissolution analysis and infrared spectroscopy failed to indicate amorphous constituents to any significant extent. Chemically the material was enriched in iron, aluminum and titanium and depleted in alkali and alkaline earth cations.

A minor component of the clay was found to consist of ‘onion-like’ halloysite. It is suggested that palagonite is a natural precursor for montmorillonite in the volcanic glass-montmorillonite alteration series.

This study does not claim to be an exhaustive critique of the contemporary cinema, whose abundance and diversity defies any attempt to unify it. It has no other purpose than to clarify the underlying meanings of certain productions which are typical of the medium (as for example, L'Avventura by Antonioni and A bout de souffle by Jean-Luc Godard), and to show that the “learned” cinema, that is, the cinema conscious of the ends pursued and the means employed, cannot but fail when it undertakes to introduce new connnections between the sign and the sense.

Utopian literature is fascinating but impossible to summarize. Of course it is easy to see where its charm lies. We enjoy the “play” aspect of the Utopian convention, the common certainty— essential to both the author's intentions and the reader's pleasure—that we are dealing with a supposition described as a fact. In a Utopian text, we enjoy the power we have of imagining, and especially formulating, another overall framework for human experience—a framework which is specifically defined as being different and described as if it had concrete existence. This is the underlying attraction of a mode of expression which permits the author to talk of serious things in the protected and detached manner permitted by play. Why, then, are summaries of utopias so disappointing? Why does a re-transmitted utopia convey only the idea of an insipid world and an arbitrary creation? Why is it so hard to write about works of this type?

Several illites and a mixed-layer illite-montmorillonite developed fractures in some particles during progressive removal of interlayer potassium by solutions containing sodium tetraphenylboron. The appearance of the splinters in bundles, some connected to incompletely broken plates, suggests the process is related to the differential release of stresses known to exist as a consequence of octahedral-tetrahedral misfit. The formation of splinters produces additional surface area for ion removal and may influence the rate of vermiculite development.