5th. That if the last analysis of a body gives us pure powers, those powers must be individual atoms-or elements. That atoms being made out of power, must be powers: and that atoms and powers are, to a certain degree, convertible

terms.

6th. That an atom is an entity of indefinite magnitude, and acts in circles or spheres, itself being the centre.

7th. That these spheres of action are indefinite, though almost inappreciable, except at their centres.

8th. That as the reason cannot conceive an energy without a substance; and as an energy cannot operate beyond the extent of its substance, so, as the power of an atom extends indefinitely, the substance must do so likewise.

9th. That the palpable qualities of matter, such as solidity, hardness, figure and colour, which seem contrary to pure powers, have only a conditional existence. They result from the combined action of many atoms..

That solid extension depends on the force of resistance, in any aggregate of atoms, which prevent any other substance being extended into the particular space occupied by them.

That other qualities, which make up our complex idea of body, arise only from the condition of the pure power of body. The hardness of a body depends upon certain forces of cohesion and resistance,-its softness upon a modification of the same forces.

10th. That inertia and weight are the properties of a pure power-neither can be lost or annihilated.

11th. That the reaction of these forces, when disturbed, may show itself in the extrication of certain phenomena, as gravitation, heat, electricity.

That electricity is owing to a particular excitement and determination of the energy of atoms, and not to a separate and peculiar fluid.

12th. That an atom is a pure power, and that the indefinite extension of its entity will account for the primary and

secondary qualities of matter-for light, heat, and electricity. That these are different forms or modifications of the same

power or substance. That the energy of motions may be turned into heat-as by striking cold iron till it become hot. That the force of extension may be turned into heat, as when tinder is lighted by compressing air; or the force of cohesion may be turned into heat, as in the explosion of gunpowder. That if the energy of heat is sufficiently intense it produces light.

That the energy of motion may be converted into electricity, as in the excitement of the electric machine.

Thus," the author concluded, " does it appear to us that matter is essentially a pure power of complex capability for operating in the modes of time and space. That its parts are ultimately individuals of definite characters which are never changed, and the individual atoms are substances of indefinite. expansion-being according to certain conditions partly palpable in the sensible properties of bodies, and partly impalpable in their energy and extensive entity; to account for the effects of which, numerous imponderable energetic fluids have been conceived of. And if matter be essentially a pure power, and none of its energy can be lost or annihilated, then may the perpetual light and heat of the sun be owing to the expending action being constantly compensated by a secret re-action from all surrounded material being."

Dr. D. P. THOMSON read the first part of a review of Reid's recent work on the Law of Storms, giving a historical sketch of the labours of others, and developing the principles of the science.

Mr. E. HIGGIN hoped that this paper would be the means of drawing the attention of Liverpool seamen to that very important subject. He instanced several cases where lamentable ignorance had led to disastrous consequences. On one

occasion he was in a clipper-built ship, when overtaken by a hurricane. The captain was ignorant of the laws of rotary storms, aud disregarded, for the time, the advice of a landsman. Dangers thickened even in the calm which followed the first stage of the tempest. The ship was suddenly taken aback, and narrowly escaped being pooped: the sternway was such, that they passed their late wake at three miles an hour. The captain now listened to the principles laid down, and by following the directions for steering in such cases, was soon in safety.

TENTH MEETING- March 4, 1850.

J. B. YATES, Esq., in the Chair.

The PRESIDENT exhibited a copy of the Encyclopedia of John Henry Alstedius, a Protestant Divine and professor at Weissemburg, in Transylvania. He was the author of about sixty works on different subjects, according to a list given by himself in a preface to the third edition of the work abovementioned; and he fairly earned the title of "Sedulitas" conferred upon him (by anagram) in the following lines by an anonymous author :

"Sedulus in libris scribendis atque legendis

Alstedius nomen Sedulitatis habet."

It will be seen that the word Sedulitas is composed of the same letters as those which are found in the name Alstedius.

In the year 1610, he published the first edition of his Encyclopedia. A second edition followed; but it appeared in a much more comprehensive form, A. D. 1630, in two large folio volumes, wherein he professes to reduce into system the several branches of art and science then known

and studied. In this work, and his Encyclopedia Biblica, he endeavours to prove that the foundation and materials of the whole are to be found in the Sacred Scriptures. The first four books contain an exposition of the various subjects to be discussed. Six books are devoted to philology, ten to speculative philosophy, and four to practical. Then follow three on theology, jurisprudence and medicine, three on mechanical arts, and five on history, chronology and miscellanies. This work exhibited a great improvement on those which had before been published under the name of Encyclopedias, during the latter half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries.

The first paper for the evening was entitled,

TRACES OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND, PARTICULARLY IN REFERENCE TO LANCASHIRE,

By J. A. PICTON, Esq., F.S.A.

To an intelligent mind at all conversant with the subject, few employments present greater interest than that of analysing our early sources of history, whether narrative, legendary, philological or topographical, separating the scattered particles of truth from the rubbish in which they lie buried, comparing and fitting them together so as to present an harmonious and consistent whole. Such is our object this evening in the illustration of a subject intimately connected with the early history of our country.

The history of England, properly speaking, begins with the advent of the Saxons. The Britain of the Romans contained, of course, the same great features of nature; mountain, lake, and river, stamped the country with the same physical characteristics; but, in all other respects, there was no identity. The race of people, the language, the laws and customs, the tenure and division of the land,

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the religious observances, were all changed. In this respect, the occupation of England by the Saxons, differed essentially from the conquest of Gaul by the Franks. In France the institutions, the laws, the language, the religion, remained comparatively unchanged. The handful of German conquerors reigned as military superiors over a vanquished people; but the force of numbers gradually prevailed, and the staple of the physique and the morale of the Frenchman remains to this day Romano Celtic. The Saxons, on the other hand, took possession of Britain much as their descendants have done of North America, driving before them the aboriginal inhabitants, absorbing and assimilating the few that remained; and thus giving to the country an essentially Saxon character. This they were enabled to do much more readily from the thinness of the population. This has sometimes been denied, and Britain, under the Romans, represented as a well-peopled and highly civilized country; but the results of the Saxon invasion prove demonstratively the contrary. It may be laid down as a principle admitting of scarcely a single exception, that in a country peopled by a mixed race, the language of the majority will ultimately prevail, modified more or less by the language of the minority, in proportion to their numbers. Thus, in Italy, conquered as it was repeatedly by the Gothic nations, the Latin language continued prevalent, diluted by the admixture of foreign idioms into the modern Italian. Greece, Spain, and Portugal, are similar instances of this principle. Perhaps the most striking instance is furnished by the Normans, who, originally a Teutonic people, when settled in the north of France, in the course of two generations, gave up their own language, and adopted that of the people they had conquered. During their subsequent emigrations and conquests, the branch of the Normans who invaded England again adopted their Teutonic dialect, whilst the branch who invaded and conquered