9 8 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



the town, we notice that the unfavourable impression, 

 which a first glimpse of the place makes, is corrected 

 to some extent by a closer inspection, and, moreover, 

 near the station there are dozens of new houses, 

 showing that the sinking is not so marked just there, 

 although possibly the great convenience of being 

 close to the station has outweighed other consider- 

 ations. On reaching the middle of Droitwich, the 

 visitor is struck by finding that some houses of con- 

 siderable antiquity still remain — strong and habitable 

 bouses evidently going back a couple of centuries 

 or more. At the top of High Street is a church 

 of some size and age, but no longer used, being 

 considered unsafe ; and just outside the town, over- 

 hanging the railway, there is another church, which, 

 though still used, has its tower curiously out of 

 the perpendicular. At one time High Street had 

 a gradual descent into Queen Street, and water 

 readily flowed all the way down ; now there has 

 been a decided sinking half-way down the former, 

 and water flows from both ends of High Street to- 

 wards the middle. Queen Street struck me as far 

 more curious ; here the sinking has been very decided ; 

 indeed some residents favoured me with reports that 

 made me quite fear, that I should some morning hear 

 that half Droitwich had fallen in. In Queen Street 

 there used to be a chapel, which became so unsafe 

 that it had to be taken down and rebuilt nearer the 

 station. Dr. William Parker Bainbrigge, a most 

 courteous and well-informed local medical practi- 

 tioner, permitted me to inspect his new house in 

 Queen Street. I entered, going down from the 

 street into the hall, but, strange to say, when the 

 learned physician built that house, four years ago, it 

 was on a level with, if not actually above, the pave- 

 ment. Along the Worcester Road, a few hundred 

 yards from the middle of Queen Street, two walls 

 are noticed skirting the road, one on each side, and 

 now the west wall presents a striking appearance : 

 the eye can trace the different stages of building, in 

 other words the wall has been built up as occasion 

 required to keep it level, on the east side the wall 

 has sunk to the level of the ground, although my 

 informant, Dr. Bainbrigge, told me that at one time 

 he could hardly look over that high wall into the 

 street. Close to Queen Street again, there are yards 

 with the roofs of the houses only just showing above 

 the ground, all else having vanished. Much of the 

 town is only kept from falling by the careful shoring 

 up that has been raised to a science, and to which 

 many houses owe their continued existence. Of 

 course new houses are seldom built in the more 

 dangerous parts of the town, and that continuous 

 improvement, which has transformed many shabby 

 fourth-rate old towns into quite presentable places 

 with good shops and handsome villas, is impossible 

 here while the depreciation of house property is con- 

 siderable. Still it is only fair to mention, that there are 

 some excellent baths and hotels in good condition, 



indeed one range of handsome baths is quite new, 

 so that local enterprise is not dead, and since my last 

 visit still more extensive building has been going on. 



The reader will perhaps ask how, if the land is 

 sinking in certain areas, the houses are sinking more 

 rapidly than the ground around them. That is, I 

 need hardly explain, not the case ; the houses and the 

 land are sinking, and the houses on opposite sides of 

 the lines of greatest subsidence fall towards those 

 lines. But the roads and yards have to be levelled 

 up, and thus it comes about that the houses seem to 

 be sinking into the ground, while in reality it is the 

 raising of the roadways and yards that leads to some 

 of the most curious effects which I have described. 



Droitwich, in addition to its antiquity, land subsi- 

 dence, and pure salt, has acquired a well-deserved 

 reputation as a health resort ; and large numbers of 

 sufferers from gout and rheumatism are flocking to 

 the town to try its baths. The benefit which many 

 of these poor creatures derive is remarkable. When, 

 however, will people learn that it is better to keep 

 illness at a distancejhan to be temporarily relieved ? 

 when will they remember that, though a visit to the 

 Droitwich Brine Baths may restore mobility to the 

 stiffened joint and comfort to life, it is most important 

 after leaving the health-giving waters of the Roman 

 Salinse and the Mediaeval Wick, to live wisely, 

 temperately and naturally, avoiding luxury and self- 

 indulgence, and thus succeeding in keeping illness at 

 a distance ? Greater purity of living would prevent 

 half the sickness that casts a deep shadow over the 

 lives of the middle-aged and elderly, and with strict 

 abstemiousness there would be far less gout, 

 rheumatism, and dyspepsia, and consequently less 

 need for Droitwich. 

 Wimborne. 



GEOLOGICAL PROGRESS DURING THE 

 LAST FIFTY YEARS. 



THE following is an abstract of an address recently 

 delivered by Dr. J. E. Taylor before the 

 Ipswich Scientific Society : — 



Dr. Taylor commenced with what he called the 

 stratigraphical part of the subject, that is, the advance 

 which had been made in our knowledge of the strata 

 of the earth's crust. Fifty years ago, he said, our 

 knowledge of the earth's strata was confined to about 

 half of what it is now, and that knowledge very 

 limited. Indeed, just a few years before, Professor 

 Sedgwick had given the name of Cambrian to the 

 rocks composing North Wales and Cumberland, and 

 Sir Roderick Murchison was then engaged in the 

 investigation of the Silurian rocks ; in 1837 Dean 

 Buckland published his famous Bridgwater Treatise, 

 which, perhaps, did more to redeem geology in the 

 eyes of prejudiced religious people, from its supposed 

 atheistic associations, than any work that was ever 



