The mineral described and analysed by the author was found at Stow, in Skye, where it occurs associated with apophyllite, stilbite, and other zeolitic minerals. It is found principally in a compact basalt, different from that in which these minerals are most abundant, and which appears to have been produced by a different eruption of basaltic matter.

The author commenced his paper by referring to the analyses of Maclagan and Tilley, which gave for the composition of bebeerine a formula precisely the same as that of morphia, but as that formula appeared to require confirmation, he had undertaken the careful reinvestigation of bebeerine.

If the plane of polarisation is normal to the direction of vibration, according to the conjecture of Fresnel, which seems to be supported by the phenomena of reflexion, the velocity of propagation of light in a crystalline medium is a function of the direction of vibration, If, on the contrary, the plane of polarisation is parallel to the direction of vibration, the velocity of propagation is a function of the position of the plane which includes the direction of vibration, and the direction of transmission.

In the author's paper on the Mechanical Action of Heat (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol. XX., Part I), the calculations depending on the dynamical equivalent of temperature in liquid water were founded on the experiments of De la Roche and Bérard on the ratio of the apparent specific heat of atmospheric air under constant pressure to that of water. The equivalent thus obtained was about one-tenth part less than Mr Joule's. Since then, the author, having become acquainted with the details of Mr Joule's experiments, has come to the conclusion that Mr Joule's equivalent is correct to about of its amount, and that the discrepancy in question originates chiefly in the experiments of De la Roche and Bérard.

At several of the stations throughout Western Europe that were formerly occupied by the colonists and soldiers of Rome, small engraved stones have been found, the inscriptions upon which shew them to have been used as medicine stamps by the Roman doctors who, many centuries ago, practised in these localities.

These medicine stones or stamps all agree in their general characters. They commonly consist of small quadrilateral or oblong pieces of a greenish-coloured steatite, engraved with a legend on one or more of their edges or borders. The inscriptions or legends are in small capital Roman letters, cut intagliate and retrograde, and consequently reading on the stone itself from right to left, but making an impression, when stamped upon wax or any other similarly plastic material, which reads from left to right.

These Notices were chiefly derived from the ordinary correspondence of the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh, from the important character of some of which Professor P. Smyth hoped that extracts from the best of the letters might be of interest to the Society.

He alluded first to the astronomers of the United States, a large and increasing body, of no mean order of excellence already, and of the richest promise. Professor Loomis' recent work, which was exhibited, gives sufficient facts to prove the above statements.

“It will be recollected that a remarkable stone called ‘La pierre platte,’ was one of the earliest points on the Mer de Glace at Chamouni whose position was ascertained by me in 1842. Its daily motion was watched by me during that summer, and its annual motion was ascertained by renewed observations in 1843, 1844, 1846, and again this year. I measured the distance along the ice from the original position of the ‘Pierre platte’ on the 27th June 1842 (ascertained by reference to fixed marks on the rocks) to its position on the 12th July 1850, and found it to be 2520 feet. But, of this distance, 1212 feet had been travelled at my previous observation on the 21st July 1846, leaving 1308 feet during the last four years against 1212 in the first four.

This paper, in its perfect form, appears in the Transactions of the Geological Society. The abstract read by His Grace on this occasion was illustrated by a number of drawings and specimens.

The author, after mentioning that no analysis of this water is to be found in any English work, and the great multitudes who resort to it, described briefly the situation of the Ursprung or original spring, the chief one at Baden, which was known to, and esteemed by, the Romans.

It has a temperature of 153·5° F., and contains, in the imperial gallon, 181·120 grains of solid matter. The predominating ingredient is chloride of sodium or common salt, which amounts to 132·6 grains in the gallon.

Several lengthy extracts were read, to illustrate, first, the relation which the author's historical views bear to those of previous inquirers in the same field; and, secondly, the theory, on the origin and progress of language, upon which his arguments are mainly rested.

The frequent occurrence of this phenomenon lately suggests the idea, whether it be any way connected with the relation of the atmosphere to an electric or other condition.

On Thursday evening last, at 7 o'clock, I observed a very beautiful rainbow, from Duke Street, extending in a brilliant and unbroken arch in a westerly direction; the south end springing from the west end of Queen Street, and the north end stretching to the eastern extremity of Abercromby Place, comprising a space in the horizon of 60° or 70°, and rising 16° or 18° in altitude.

The animals either wholly new, or new to Britain, described in this communication, were taken during a yachting cruise with Mr Macandrew, of Liverpool, among the Hebrides, in the month of August 1850. During this voyage, which lasted three weeks, a series of observations were conducted by means of the dredge and towing-net. Not a single new testaceous Mollusk was procured; but several remarkable Ascidians and Radiata were discovered, some of them so curious in themselves, and so important in their zoological bearings, that the authors of this paper thought it desirable to lay an account of them before the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Having brought before this Society in April 1849, a plan for cooling the air of rooms in tropical climates, the author was anxious to determine by actual experiment on a very large scale the practicability of the principle involved, viz., the thermotic effect of the compression of air. He had had a small apparatus made in 1844, which, though not sufficiently large to give exact numerical data, at least showed that the plan was in the bounds of possibility.

This memoir commences by stating that Mr Stevenson was born at Glasgow on the 5th May 1772, and that he died at Edinburgh, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, on the 12th July 1850. The writer then notices the disadvantages under which Mr Stevenson laboured in infancy and youth, owing to the death of his father, who was a partner in a West India House in Glasgow, and died in the Island of St Christophers soon after the birth of his only child.

There are few places on the earth's surface which, within such a limited area, combine so many of the requisite elements for chartographic delineation as are met with in Scotland. With mountains rising almost to the limit of the snow-line, and an extensive seaboard, broken up by firths and lochs into every conceivable form of promontory, cape, and headland, this portion of Great Britain comprises within itself such a variety of physical features as is only found elsewhere distributed over much more extensive regions.

The paper was accompanied by two tables, containing the results of sixty-three experiments respecting the rate at which vapour condenses on a cold surface.

The poison is of an amber colour, has a faint animal odour and an acrid taste. When treated with alcohol or ether it separates into two portions—the one soluble and the other insoluble. From some experiments Dr Russell made he concluded that both were poisonous, but is inclined to believe the soluble to be the more poisonous of the two.

The author commences his paper by mentioning the different sources from which capric acid has been obtained, and then proceeds to point out a new source for obtaining it, namely, the grain oil from the Scotch distilleries.