August 25, 1887] 



NATURE 



389 



ment which detracts very much from the credit of photo-micro- 

 graphy. Dr. Klein says : — " In connexion with this it must 

 certainly appear remarkable that in the numerous and important 

 publications on Bacteria by Koch and his pupils since 1877 to 

 the present time we do not find a single illustration represented 

 by micro-photography. All their published illustrations are 

 drawings." 



In addition to the works I have quoted (viz. Koch, " Mitth. 

 aus d. K. Gesundheitsamt," Band i, 1881, illustrated with an ex- 

 tensive series of photographs ; Hauser, ' ' Ueber Faulnissbakterien, " 

 1885, illustrated with an elaborately reproduced series ; Van 

 Ermengem, " Recherches sur le Microbe du Cholera," 1885, 

 illustrated very successfully with twenty photographs), there are, 

 since my work was published, Riedel, "Die Cholera," 1887, 

 illustrated with most beautifully reproduced plates from nega- 

 tives of comma-bacilli taken by Plagge and by Koch ; " Zeit- 

 schrift fiir Hygiene," Zweiter Band, May 1887, two pub- 

 lications, illustrated with a series of photographs by the assist- 

 ants at Koch's laboratory; Loffler, " Vorlesungen iiber Bacte- 

 rien," May 1887, illustrated with reproductions from Koch's 

 negatives. Edgar Crookshank. 



24 Manchester Square, W. 



THE LANDSLIP A T ZUG. 



'T'O judge by the glimpses which I obtained of English 

 *• newspapers during my late visit to the Alps, con- 

 siderable misapprehension has prevailed in this country 

 to the nature of the disastrous landslip at Zug. For 

 stance, one of the most important journals had a leading 

 article on the subject, describing learnedly the fall of the 

 Kossberg, the destruction of Plurs, and other like Alpine 

 instances, with which the late calamity has no more con- 

 nexion than the slipping of a piece of the Thames Em- 

 bankment into the river would have with the fall of a peak 

 of Snowdon. Hence, as I had the opportunity a short 

 time since of visiting Zug, and in company with my 

 fellow-traveller, the Rev. E. Hill, forming an opinion as 

 to the cause of the accident, it may be worth while to 

 give a few details. In drawing up this account I have 

 used the abstract of a report by Prof. Heim, which takes 

 the view which I had already adopted from examination 

 of the locality, and has supplied me with a number of 

 important details. 



The newer part of the town of Zug stands on a plain 

 which extends back from the lake to a considerable dis- 

 tance inland. Generally almost level, this at last shelves 

 gently down, falling perhaps a dozen feet in the last 

 hundred yards. The older part of the town occupies 

 slightly rising ground between the water and hills which 

 in England we should call mountains. Both parts, how- 

 ever, are not founded upon the rock, but upon a detrital 

 deposit. Where are now the streets of Zug was once the 

 lake : the streams from the adjoining hills have encroached 

 upon its waters, and the town stands upon the delta which 

 they have formed : the older upon the coarser more pebbly 

 material, the newer upon the finer and sandy, where, in 

 prehistoric times, the piles of lake-dwellings were driven. 

 A few years since the people of Zug thought to improve 

 and beautify their town by building an esplanade in the 

 place of the old irregular shore of the lake. It is faced by 

 a wall of solid granite, which rests on a foundation of 

 concrete, supported by piles. Outside this the water 

 deepens rather rapidly : still no great depth is reached. 

 Twenty metres from the edge of the quay it is 9 metres ; 

 at a distance of 100 metres it does not exceed 20, and 

 even at a distance of 800 metres from the shore has only 

 attained 45. The portion of the quay completed at the 

 beginning of the present summer terminated for a time 

 with a sort of bastion ; north of that the piles had been 

 driven for some distance, but no masonry had been laid. 

 Rather more than 100 yards in this direction from the 

 end of the new wall was a steam-boat pier, constructed as 

 usual of wood. 



Twice already in its history has Zug been the scene of 

 disastrous landslips, once in the year 1435, and again in 

 1 594 ; so that some few months back, when formidable 

 cracks and indications of settlement began to appear in 

 the new quay wall, considerable anxiety was aroused. 

 Prof. Heim, among others, was consulted, and was not 

 able, as a geologist, to offer much consolation, for he 

 could only say that the foundation on which the whole 

 place rested was, as will be seen, naturally defective. 

 Still, as things had on the whole held together in the past, 

 so, after this protest on the part of Nature, they might 

 continue in the future. Certain remedial measures were 

 suggested, and a careful watch was kept upon the new 

 structures. 



The catastrophe, however, occurred without further 

 warning on July 5. Suddenly, about four o'clock in the 

 afternoon, a large piece of land, occupied by houses and 

 gardens, between the bastion and the steam-boat pier, 

 seemed to break up, descend almost vertically, and become 

 ingulfed in the lake. It was a scene of wild and awful 

 confusion, unhappily not unaccompanied by loss of life. 

 A steam-boat had just come up to the pier : the waves 

 broke the hawser and drove the vessel more than a 

 hundred yards back into the lake. Here, however, all 



QUAf-ANLAaE. 



STEAMBOAT PIER 



LAKE OF ZUG 



escaped unhurt, but the occupant of a small boat was 

 upset and drowned, and the landlord of an adjoining 

 restaurant, who had gone from his garden with some 

 guests to see what was happening (for the ground seems 

 to have gone in a series of quickly successive slips, not in 

 one single fall), when the earth cracked beneath his feet, 

 sprang in the wrong direction and was ingulfed in the 

 muddy whirlpool. Three children also perished in one of 

 the fallen houses. 



Again about seven o'clock another and a larger slip 

 took place ; the destruction of property was greater, but 

 this time without loss of life, for the people had taken the 

 alarm and evacuated the houses. The dust from this ruin 

 rose like a cloud, and was seen from the Rigi. Since 

 then there has been no further slip ; indeed, as we read, 

 no further movement ; for the cracks in neighbouring 

 walls have been sealed up in many places, so that even a 

 slight settlement could readily be detected. 



The result of the landslip is as follows. A few months 

 since there was a street in Zug running roughly parallel with 



