Stated Meeting, May 17, 1861Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 8, No. 65 (Jan. - Jun., 1861),pp. 261-262Published by: American Philosophical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/982036 .

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forschende Gesellschaft at Bamberg (Baijern), dated Decem- ber 21, 1860, expressing a desire to extend the range of their

exchanges, and to include therein the publications of the American Philosophical Society. Inclosed was received a letter from Felix Fl?gel, dated Leipsig, January 19, 1861, in-

forming the Society that he had transferred his copies of its

Proceedings to the Bamberg Natural History Society. Donations for the Library were received from the Academies

at Vienna, Stockholm, Boston, and Philadelphia ; the Royal Danish, the Royal, Royal Astronomical, Royal Geographical, and Geological Societies, Society of Arts and Royal Institu-

tion, at London, the Essex and Franklin Institutes, the Boston

Society of Natural History, the Bureau des Ponts at Paris, the Radcliffe Trustees, the National Observatory at Washing- ton, the Editors of the American Journal and Medical News and Library, Dr. W. Whewell of Cambridge, England, and

Major Bache, U. S. T. Engineers. On motion of Dr. Bache, the Physico-CBconomical Society

of K?nigsberg, in Prussia, was ordered to be placed on the list of corresponding Societies, at the discretion of the Secre- taries.

On motion of Professor Cresson, the Natural History So-

ciety at Bamberg, in Bavaria, was ordered to be placed on the list of corresponding Societies, at the discretion of the Secre- taries.

And the Society was adjourned.

Stated Meeting, May 17, 1861.

Present, thirteen members.

Professor Cresson, Vice-President, in the Chair.

Donations for the Library were received from the Bamberg and K?nigsberg Societies, the Swedish Academy, London

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262

Chemical Society, the Franklin and Wilmington Institutes, the Editor of the Rural Economist, the Minister of Public In- struction at Santiago de Chili, and Mr. George Ord.

Mr. Lesley described the super-anticlinal situations of the more violent oil-springs of the West, on the authority of Gene- ral Pomeroy, and stated that it is a law of our principal car- boniferous synclinal troughs to have at least one subordinate

commonly excentric anticlinal in its floor, dividing it longitu- dinally into at least two troughs, in each of which the salt water collects. The principal collection of oil and gas, on the contrary, takes place at the crest of the intermediate anti-

clinal, and the most violent explosions of gas issue from

borings along this axis. Professor Cresson illustrated the structural law thus stated, by referring to the report of Pro- fessor Faraday to the British Government on the explosions of coal-gas in the English mines. These are particularly dan-

gerous in the vicinity of " inverted troughs," or anticlinals, in

the upper part of which the gas collects. Any unusual fall of the barometer is of course the signal for a copious downflow of fire-damp from these reservoirs, the pressure which keeps it there being for the time taken off. The same pneumatic law propagates originally slight or moderate explosions to

great distances along the workings. The first explosion, with its corollary vacuum, sets free a volume of gas involved in the

goaf or gob of the neighborhood ; this, when exploded in its

turn, sets free fresh volumes of gas still farther on. Professor Cresson, alluding to the fact that much of the re-

flected light we see is polarised, whence the glare and difficulty experienced regarding pictures and objects under glass, de- scribed an application of the Nichols prism to the opera glass, made by Dr. Charles M. Cresson, by which the difficulty is

successfully encountered, and objects can be read under glass obliquely as plainly as when uncovered.

The Society was then adjourned.

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