128 A. Milward, Esq., on an Extensive Mud-Slide 



They are celebrated for hospitality, and as faithful friends 

 as they are bitter and implacable enemies ; but, surrounded 

 as they are by a vitiated and but semicivilised people, op- 

 pressed for three centuries by grasping and tyrannical govern- 

 ment, and existing in a country to which nature has accorded 

 but few advantages, either of soil or climate, we see in the 

 primitive and barbarous character of the Pueblo Indians of 

 New Mexico much more to admire than to condemn. 



Account of an Extensive Mud- Slide in the Island of Malta, 

 By A. Milward, Esq. (With a Plate.) Communicated by 

 the Author. 



Recent researches upon the phenomena of glaciers have 

 shewn the existence of certain analogies between the motion 

 and other characteristics of those bodies and those of viscous 

 fluids. Various experiments were made to ascertain the 

 peculiarities of motion of such fluids, more particularly with 

 reference to internal structure, and its manner of formation ; 

 and, by the use of different coloured layers of viscous matter, 

 that structure has been shewn to bear a remarkable resem- 

 blance to the ribbon structure of glaciers. 



The phenomena attendant upon the motion of viscous fluids 

 became thus, as it were, a part of the subject ; and any par- 

 ticular example, besides its own individual interest, derives 

 additional importance from the light which it throws on a 

 new and beautiful investigation. 



The writer is not aware of any recorded example of the 

 motion of viscous fluids on a large scale : Experiments can 

 only be carried out on a small scale. Under this impres- 

 sion, he considered that a detailed account of an extensive 

 mud-slide which came under his notice in the Island of Malta 

 might be worthy of notice. The occurrence of another mud- 

 slide, on a small scale, has suggested an explanation of some 

 of the phenomena of the first. 



It is the object of the present paper to describe — 



1*/, The nature and appearance of the principal mud- slide. 



