As far as we can judge from historical records, the primeval mode of disposing of dead bodies, was by inhumation. It has been observed in another essay, that according to Pliny, the ancient Romans did not burn their dead, but consigned them to the earth. It must be admitted, however, that by some the mode of cremation had been preferred in a very early period of their history; as we cannot otherwise account for the prohibition, which Plutarch ascribes to Numa, as to the burning of his body.

The analysis of Mineral Waters has always been considered as a difficult operation. Numerous methods are employed to discover their ingredients, and estimate their quantities, many of which are liable to errors. This diversity of method itself is a source of discordant results. And to those not familiar with such researches, it presents the difficulty often of determining what process is best adapted to discover a particular composition. Hence the advantage of a general formula, if this could be given, applicable to the analysis of all waters. The views which have been stated in the papers, connected with this subject, which I have had the honour of submitting to the Society, have suggested a method which appears to me to admit of very general application, and to be simple, not difficult of execution, nor liable to any sources of error but what may be easily obviated. The principles on which this method is founded, and the details of the process itself, form the subject of the following observations.

The following circumstances respecting the Blind and Deaf Boy, James Mitchell, have come to my knowledge since the publication of Professor Stewart's Memoir; and I doubt not but the Society will think them worthy of being recorded. They are derived from the most accurate and authentic of all sources, the boy's sister, Miss Mitchell.

In the month of April 1814, Mr Parker, an English gentleman, (distinguished, as I have since learned, for his active benevolence,) did me the honour to wait upon me, to communicate a plan for the instruction of young Mitchell, which had some time before occurred to him, and which he was very desirous should be put to the test of experiment. This method seemed in no respect inconsistent with those principles which in all circumstances appear to regulate the acquisition of language; and I therefore expressed my willingness, to promote, by every means in my power, the object which Mr Parker had in view.

Explosions in mines, from the kindling of the inflammable gas called Fire-Damp by the miners, have always occasionally occurred. Of late they have become more frequent in some of the coal-mines in this country, particularly those in the districts of the Tyne, and the Wear, in the North of England, and have been attended with such fatal consequences, as to have forcibly called public attention to the subject. In an explosion in one mine, about two years ago, ninety-two persons were killed; in another, which occurred soon after, thirty-two lost their lives; in one which happened within these few months, fifty-seven persons were destroyed; and recently, it has been affirmed, that several hundred lives are lost annually from this cause. From the state of the mines, particularly in the accumulation of wastes, the collection of water, and the increasing depth of the workings, there is reason to fear, too, that such accidents will become more frequent. Humanity loudly calls, therefore, on every effort being made to obviate the calamity; and even as a national concern, the immense loss of property in the mines, and the probability which has been suggested, that the working of them must ere long be abandoned, give to the subject the highest claims to consideration.

Nice is situated on the shore of the Mediterranean, in lat. 43° 41′ 16″ N. and long, east of Greenwich 7° 16′ 37″. The county of which Nice is the capital, was comprehended in the Roman province of the Maritime Alps: it was included, while under the influence of France, in a department to which the same name was given; and now, it is restored to the sovereignty of Piémont, it may be considered as bounded on the west by the Var, which separates it from France, on the north and east by the mountains of Dauphiné and Piémont, and on the south, it is washed by the Mediterranean.

The distribution of Heat over the surface of our Globe, is a capital object in the economy of Nature. The infusion of that active element communicates to bodies the principle of motion, and quickens the ceaseless revolution of the circle of generation and decay. But Heat, unlike air, water, or earth, appears never in a distinct and separate form: It exists onlv in a state of combination with other tangible substances; among which, it migrates from one to another. On the regulated tide of this transmission, depends the stability of the present order of things.

The obligations of Experimental Physics to the labours of Lord Bacon, have been largely acknowledged by the generality of those who have treated of the History of Modern Science; insomuch, that the title of Father of experimental Philosophy has been oftener conferred upon him than upon any other of its benefactors. There are some, however, who seem to think, that there is no good ground for honouring him with this title, either on account of the merits or the effects of his writings. They do not indeed deny, that his views as to the proper objects and method of philosophizing were extensive and just; but they contend, that he had no peculiar merit in having stated these views; that all that he taught was virtually and more effectually taught by the discoveries of some of his contemporaries; and that, in fact, there are no traces of his agency to be found in the discoveries that followed.

In a paper which I had the honour of submitting to the Society, at the end of last session, I gave a detailed account of the effects of mechanical compression and dilatation, in communicating to glass and other uncrystallised bodies, all the properties of doubly refracting crystals. I had at that time attempted, without success, to alter the polarising structure of doubly refracting crystals, although I applied the force of powerful screws to Topaz, Rock-crystal, and Calcareous spar. All the specimens which I employed were crushed to pieces by the pressure, but exhibited no traces of the coloured rings when exposed to polarised light.

In the Philosophical Transactions for 1816, I have described at great length the various phenomena which are exhibited by glass and other substances to which the property of double refraction has been communicated by heat, by rapid cooling, by evaporation, or by mechanical compression and dilatation. In pursuing the same subject, I have observed many singular facts respecting the developement of new axes, by a change in the form and condition of the plates; and by submitting the phenomena to accurate measurement, I have succeeded in determining the laws which regulate the distribution of the polarising force. A brief account of these results will form the subject of the following paper.

The practicability of instructing in any kind of language a person blind and deaf from infancy seems not to have occurred to the friends of James Mitchell till suggested by Dr Gordon, whose ideas on the subject are contained in Professor Stewart's account published in the Transactions of this Society. An attempt has been since made to put in practice a plan for the same purpose, proposed by Mr Parker, an English gentleman who resided for a short time in Scotland. This consisted in accustoming him to handle the letters of the alphabet, formed of pieces of wood or paste board, when placed together so as to compose different words significant of tangible objects, and making him handle the objects in order to learn their meaning.

The tract of country extending across this island, from the sea-coast of Galloway to that of Berwickshire, consists, with little interruption, of that species of rock, which has of late been most generally known by the German name of Grauwacke. But as this rock does not differ essentially from what in Cornwall is called Killas, I am disposed, in concurrence with several members of this Society, in particular with Mr Allan, who has of late been in Cornwall, and has paid particular attention to that subject, to reject the uncouth term Grauwacke, and adopt that of Killas, as being more congenial to our language.

I Propose to submit to the Society the analysis of a Mineral Water of the Saline Class, which has lately been discovered in the neighbourhood of Dunblane. The subject may have rather more interest than usually belongs to researches of this nature, from the composition of this water being such as promises to afford a spring of considerable medicinal efficacy, and from its resemblance to another mineral water, of some celebrity,—that of Pitcaithly, the analysis of which I have, from this circumstance, been also led to undertake. The investigation, too, may afford some illustrations of the different methods that may be employed in the analysis of waters of this class, and of the facility and precision which are given to these researches, by the results that have been established with regard to the definite proportions in which many bodies combine, and the uniformity of the relations which thus exist between the compounds they form. And it has led to some views with regard to the constitution of mineral waters of the saline class, which I have applied to the composition of some of the most celebrated mineral waters. In performing the principal experiments on the Dunblane water, I had the advantage of Mr Ellis's co-operation.

Sir George Mackenzie having already given a paper, entitled, “An Account of some Geological Facts observed “in the Faroe Islands,” it may be necessary to explain why our communications were not combined in one. This was simply owing to our objects being in some measure dissimilar. He was anxious to compare the facts presented in a country decidedly volcanic, with those in a trap district, where no traces of a volcano were to be discovered; consequently, his observations were confined to particular facts: whereas my object is to describe, without relation to theory, whatever appeared to me interesting in a geological point of view.

By comparing the longitudes and latitudes of the fixed stars, as computed from their right ascensions, and north polar distances, determined by observations made at distant periods, Astronomers have been enabled to ascertain, with the utmost accuracy, the precession of the equinoxes. The great accuracy, however, which has lately been introduced into the construction of astronomical instruments, and the more general cultivation of Practical Astronomy, will hereafter be the means of ascertaining the minute changes in the places of the fixed stars, which have been denominated their proper motion, and which, probably, arise from a motion of the solar system in absolute space.

The Paper which I have the honour of presenting to the Society, is drawn up from letters written by Captain Hall to some of his friends in this country, after a visit made to the Cape of Good Hope, and an excursion to the Table Mountain, in July last. I have given the description, as much as possible, in his own words, and have only connected parts, which, from the nature of the communications, were necessarily disjoined from one another. One of the letters being written to myself, and containing a general view of the whole, has been my guide for arranging the rest.

Although we have many writers on geological subjects, whose works are distinguished by ingenuity of doctrine, and novelty of opinion, and, among them, some who have made advances towards arrangement; it was reserved to the celebrated Werner, to introduce means, by which rocks might be described with some degree of precision. Many ingenious theories were invented, to account for their formation; but little or no attention was paid, to the acquirement of an accurate knowledge, either of their composition, or their relative position in nature; although these certainly appear to be the bases, on which such speculative opinions ought to be founded.

The singular appearances which were presented to my view by the Trap Rocks of Iceland, and the interest which they excited, made me resolve, as soon as I had given an account of that country to the public, to visit the Islands of Faroe. This expedition was undertaken, for the purpose of ascertaining, whether, in a Trap Country, where no traces of external volcanoes existed, any thing similar to the peculiar features of the rocks of Iceland was to be found. In the latter country were discovered a series of rocks, lying above the beds of Trap, which bore the most striking marks of igneous origin; in some instances having a perfect resemblance to ordinary Trap, and in others to the common Lavas of the country. The beds of Trap, and those above them, being separated by mechanical depositions of Tuffa (Trap-Tuff), led me to the conclusion, that the whole of the beds had been formed at the bottom of the sea, by successive eruptions of a submarine volcano.

We are never more disposed to give credit to a philosophical system, than when we meet with a case of its successful application, unknown to the author, or containing circumstances which he had not taken into account when he formed that system.

The facts brought forward in the following paper, which, according to my view of the subject, clearly indicate the operation of immense torrents, can be accounted for, I think, in a very satisfactory manner, by the Huttonian Theory, and consequently afford some very powerful arguments in support of it.

The river Tilt is a principal branch of the Tay, which rises on the borders of Aberdeenshire, and runs towards the south-west, through the north-eastern part of the county of Perth. A portion of the valley along its course, for about ten miles above Blair of Atholl, is called Glen Tilt.

The adjacent country presents the common character of the Highlands. It is mountainous and rugged, and the surface, except in the lower parts of the valleys, is chiefly covered with heath. Peat-moss frequently occurs.