The most mountainous parts of Scotland are situated in its western and north-west districts. From those parts of the country, several chains of mountains branch off, and continue their courses in various directions, and to various extent. The most extended of those chains is that of the Grampians. This chain takes its rise from nearly about the centre of the above alpine district, and continues its course in a direction almost due east, or perhaps a little to the south of that point, until it disappears in the German Ocean, betwixt the towns of Aberdeen and Stonehaven.

Dear Sir,

As the following paper refers in a great measure to the general theorems published by your father, I now commit it to your care, and that of my friend Mr Playfair, Professor of Natural Philosophy. I wish it to be communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and, if approved of, to be inserted in their Transactions as soon as possible. Indeed, I trust, that even simple as it is, it will not be altogether unacceptable to that learned body.

I am,

Dear Sir,

Most sincerely your, &c.

Jas Glenie.

Ancient Revolutions of the Mineral Kingdom.—Vain attempts to explain them.—Dependence of Geology on Chemistry.—Importance of the Carbonate of Lime.—Dr Black's discovery of Carbonic Acid, subverted the former theories depending on Fire, but gave birth to that of Dr Hutton.—Progress of the Author's Ideas with regard to that Theory.—Experiments with Heat and Compression, suggested to Dr Hutton in 1790.—Undertaken by the Author in 1798.—Speculations on which his hopes of success were founded.

The investigations which I have at present the honour of submitting to the Royal Society, were suggested by the experiments which have been made of late years concerning the gravitation of terrestrial bodies, first, by Dr Maskelyne, on the Attraction of Mountains, and afterwards by Mr Cavendish, on the Attraction of Leaden Balls.

The phenomenon about to be described, was seen on August 6. 1806, about seven in the evening; the air being very still, and a little hazy. The tops of the four turrets of Dover Castle usually appear above the hill, lying between Ramsgate and Dover; but, at the above-stated time, not only the tops were visible, but the whole of the Castle, appearing as if it were situated on the side of the hill next to Ramsgate, and rising as much above the hill as usual.

A Large snake of this species was brought to Comillah. It measured 15 feet 3 inches in length, and 18 inches in circumference about the middle. This measurement, however, varied considerably by the wreathings and contortions it made, in order to free itself from confinement.

The specimen which formed the subject of the first of the following analyses, was brought from the banks of the river Dee, about seven years ago, by my friend Mr James Mill, who at that time resided in Aberdeenshire. By him I was informed, that considerable quantities of it are found in different parts of the bed of that river,—that it is called by the inhabitants ironsand,—and that they use it for sanding newly written paper. I tried some experiments in the year 1800, in order to ascertain its nature; but was too little skilled at that time, both in mineralogy and practical chemistry, to manage an analysis of any considerable difficulty.

The Quadrature of the Conic Sections, and the Computation of Logarithms, are problems of considerable importance, not only in the elements of Mathematics, but also in the higher branches of that science. On this account, every successful attempt to simplify their resolution, as well as any new formulæ which may be found applicable to that purpose, must always be interesting, and must in some measure contribute to the improvement of mathematical knowledge.

Among a parcel of minerals which I procured last spring, there are specimens of two very rare fossils; one of them, the Cryolite, the other I believe a variety of the Gadolinite. The former, is accurately described in the different mineralogical works, and I have little to add to the information contained in them. But the Gadolinite appears to be very imperfectly known, and has never yet been described as a crystallised fossil.

An argument against the hypothesis of central heat has been stated by an ingenious author as carrying with it the evidence of demonstration.

“The essential and characteristic property of the power producing heat, is its tendency to exist every where in a state of equilibrium, and it cannot hence be preserved without loss or without diffusion, in an accumulated state. In the theory of Hutton, the existence of an intense local heat, acting for a long period of time, is assumed. But it is impossible to procure caloric in an insulated state. Waving every objection to its production, and supposing it to be generated to any extent, it cannot be continued, but must be propagated to the contiguous matter. If a heat, therefore, existed in the central region of the earth, it must be diffused over the whole mass; nor can any arrangement effectually counteract this diffusion. It may take place slowly, but it must always continue progressive, and must be utterly subversive of that system of indefinitely renewed operations which is represented as the grand excellence of the Huttonian Theory. Again, he observes, in giving what he says appears to him a demonstration of the fallacy of the first principles of the Huttonian System, it will not be disputed, that the tendency of caloric is to diffuse itself over matter, till a common temperature is established. Nor will it probably be denied, that a power constantly diffusing itself from the centre of any mass of matter, cannot remain for an indefinite time locally accumulated in that mass, but must at length become equal or nearly so over the whole.

About three years ago, a Danish vessel was brought into Leith as a prize. Among other articles, she contained a small collection of minerals, which were purchased by Thomas Allan, Esq; and Colonel Imrie, both members of this Society. The country from which these minerals had been brought was not known for certain; but as the collection abounded in Cryolite, it was conjectured, with very considerable probability, that they had been collected in Greenland.

The mineral to which I have given the name of Sodalite, was also put into my hands by Mr Allan. In the Greenland collection which he purchased, there were several specimens of a rock, obviously primitive. In the composition of these, the substance of which I am about to treat, formed a constituent, and, at first appearance, was taken for felspar, to which it bears a very striking resemblance.

It is a singular fact in the history of science, that, after all the attempts of the most eminent modern mathematicians, to obtain a simple and satisfactory demonstration of the fundamental property of the lever, the solution of this problem given by Archimedes, should still be considered as the most legitimate and elementary. Galileo, Huygens, De la Hire, Sir Isaac Newton, Maclaurin, Landen, and Hamilton, have directed their attention to this important part of mechanics; but their demonstrations are in general either tedious and abstruse, or founded on assumptions too arbitrary to be recognised as a proper basis for mathematical reasoning. Even the demonstration given by Archimedes is not free from objections, and is applicable only to the lever, considered as a physical body.

Although science has only within these few years acknowledged the importance of Geology, the eagerness with which it has been cultivated, affords sufficient proof of the interest it is capable of creating. Of this we have a recent example in the laborious undertaking of Sir George Mackenzie and his friends, who, not with standing all the dangers presented by a voyage through the most tempestuous ocean, and the deprivations to which they were exposed, in a journey through a country destitute of the slightest trace to guide the route of the traveller, were not deterred from exploring the inhospitable shores of Iceland. These, and other travellers, have extended our knowledge of various districts on the surface of the globe; but we have still to lament the extreme imperfection of the science, which, as yet, has assumed no decided character or form.

In the original charter of the Royal Society, it was provided that the collections of the Society should be deposited, if belonging to Natural History, in the Museum of the University, and if to Antiquities, in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates. Much inconvenience, however, could hardly fail to result from this arrangement, especially when the researches of the Society, having, as of late, been much turned to Geology, it became an object to collect together the specimens which served to illustrate the subjects under discussion, and to have them at hand when reference should be necessary.