RESIDENCE ON LIMESTONE SOILS. 



support his body, the extremity of his leg-bone, 

 the tibia, crumbled into fragments, having been 

 calcined into lime. Still he expressed no sense of 

 pain, and probably experienced none, from the 

 gradual operation of the fire, and his own torpidity, 

 during the hours his foot was consuming. This 

 poor drover survived his misfortunes in the hospital 

 about a fortnight ; but the fire having extended to 

 other parts of his body, recovery was hopeless. 



Residences upon limestone soils have generally 

 been considered as less liable than other situations 

 to infectious and epidemic disorders ; and such 

 places being usually more elevated, they become 

 better ventilated, and freed from stagnated and un- 

 wholesome airs, and by the absorbing principle of 

 the soil are kept constantly dry. All this seems to 

 favour the supposition that they are healthy ; but 

 if exempted from ailments arising from mal-aria, 

 inflammatory complaints do not seem excluded 

 from such situations. When the typhus fever pre- 

 vailed in the country, we were by no means ex- 

 empted from its effects ; the severe coughs attending 

 the spring of 18&6 afflicted grievously most indivi- 

 duals in every house ; and the measles, which pre- 

 vailed so greatly at the same season, visited every 

 cottage, though built upon the very limestone rock. 

 This village and its neighbouring parishes, by 

 reason of the peculiar culture carried on in them, 

 and the natural production of the district, afford 



