Feb. 10, 1882.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



319 



fact that loug-contiuaed raius, soaking duwu tlirough porous bods 

 above, wcro arrusted by beds of non-porous clay, whicb, however, 

 became softened to such a device that the mountaiu-mass of strata 

 that rested upon tbeni slid forward U]ion them, and rushed down 

 into the valley. After describing yet other modes in which natural 

 jmbbish-heaps were formed, Dr. Gcikio went on to remark that all 

 the phenomena referred to were more or less eioeptioual, and 

 that the agent which cCTected the greatest results was frost. 

 Some of the other agents he had described could only 

 work under certain geological conditions; — others, again, 

 were somewhat limited in their action, and tended to re- 

 move the rubbish-heaps which they themselves had accumulated. 

 But the action of frost in a country like ours was, he might say, 

 general. It affected every pai-t of the laud, but of course the 

 amount of work it performed waj very variable. Its results were 

 most conspicuous in mountain regions, where frosts were not only 

 more freijuent, more intense, and more prolonged, but where the 

 physiographical conditions of the surface lent their aid in the most 

 effective manner. The rock-(?(?t)i.< gathered to the greatest thick- 

 ness upon slopes at the base of a rocky precipice. This was 

 natural, for the steep rocks above, shattered by frost, showered 

 their debris downward. But on flat hill-tops the time must come 

 when the formation of rock-iitJlris must terminate. The rock 

 would only be acted upon to as great a depth as the frost 

 could jienetrate. Some account of the frost-riven d<!biii of other 

 countries was then given, more especially of the Swiss Aljis, 

 and northern regions of Kmope and North America. It was 

 remarkable that many paits of our own country were covered with 

 sheets of debris which had apiarently long ago ceased to accumu- 

 late, and these sheets occurred not only upon comparatively low 

 ground, but even in moitutain regions. The angular fraguients 

 were grown over now with lichen and heath, and even with natural 

 wood, and in every featme betrayed the marks of great antiquity. 

 And not only so, but they occurred in positions to which loose 

 blocks detached from the rocks at higher levels could not possibly 

 have rolled. Is was hard enough to account for the presence of 

 such sheets of ancient angular diSbris in a country like Scotlaud, 

 but it was more difficult still to explain the 'presence of 

 similar sheets of angular debris at low levels in the South 

 of England, in Northern France, in Southern Spain, and 

 •t many places npon the bordeis of the Mediterranean. After 

 giving a description of the so-called " Head " of Devonshire, Corn- 

 wall, ic, and the similar accumulation upon the coast of Normandy, 

 Dr. Geikie went on to give some account of the clay-with-flints of 

 the Paris Basin and the great consolidated dtjfcn's-heaps or breccias 

 of Gibraltar. By means of sections across the Eock he showed the 

 position of these breccias, and explained how they had been formed 

 at two different periods, separated by a considerable time, during 

 which the Bock of Gibraltar was submerged for some hundreds of 

 feet. After remarking upon the fact that similar breccias occurred 

 in Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Italy, Cyprus, and other places, he 

 proceeded to explain the mode in which they, the " Head " of 

 Cornwall, the ancient de6ns-heap of Scotland, and similar forma- 

 tions elsewhere, had been accumulated. The angular fragments 

 had been dislodged from the rock of which they once formed a 

 i irt by the action of frost. But they could not have rolled to 

 ir present position upon the low grounds by the mere impetus 

 ■ itured by them when they were disrupted from the rocks above. 

 They would naturally come to rest npon the low grounds at the 

 base of the cliffs, unless some other force than the mere impetus of 

 their fall had been urging tlicm forward. We now meet with them 

 at distances of many hundred yards away from the foot of the cliffs 

 and steeper slopes, and to have reached their present positions they 

 have travelled over a surface-slo|>e not greater in many cases than 

 5 , or even 3". The d(!bris speaks not only to the action of hard 

 frost, but of heavy snows. It was the melting of the latter and the 

 satnration of the de'lris-heaps which caused the rubbish to flow 

 as it were outwards from the base of the cliff, and doubtless 

 this action was still further favoiu'cd by the alternate freezing 

 and thawing of the water-soaked masses. It might seem 

 strange to speak of snows and hard frosts in the islands 

 and along the borders of the Mediterranean, but the evi- 

 dence of former colder conditions was not by any means restricted 

 to ancient <i<f6rii>-heaps or breccias. In a few words Dr. Geikie 

 then sketched the broad results which had been aiTived at by 

 glaciaUsts as to the former extent of the European snow fields aud 

 glaciers during the Glacial Period, and he showed that these, taken 

 m connection with the evidence furnished by organic remains, both 

 animal and vegetable, abundantly confirmed the conclusions to 

 which the phenomena of the ancient rubbish-heaps appeared to 

 point. The climate of aU Europe had been greatly affected ; 

 not Only did an enormous ice-sheet, extending from Scandinavia 

 and burying the British Isles, creep southward over the plains of 

 Northern Germany, but aU the mountain-tracts became centres 



of glaciation. The present glaciers of Switzerland were the 

 degenerate successors of great icefields which now meet with their 

 nearest analogues in the .\.rctic Ke-ii.ns. And many hilly districts 

 in France, Spain, and Eastern an 1 Sjuthern Europe, which were 

 now destitute of glaciers, were fornjcrly the seats of extensive snow- 

 lields and glaciers of no mean size. \Vhile in other places, such as 

 the low grounds of Southern England and France, and hilly regions 

 bordering on the Jlediterranean, where the conditions were not 

 favourable to the formation of gluciei^, considerable snows fell, and 

 hard frost ruptured and shattered the rocks. It was to this period 

 of cold that most of those great accumulations of rock-dt'bris be- 

 longed — those natural rubbish-heaps wliich had uow ceased in 

 many places to accumulate. They thus bore strong evidence 

 to the former extent and intensity of ice-action during the Glacial 

 Period. 



BR. CAEPENTER ON VACCINATION 



AT a monthly conference of the London Society for the Aboli- 

 tion of Com|>u!sory Vaccination, lield at the St;;inway Hall 

 (Dr. Andrew Clark in the chair), an address was given by Dr. 

 W. B. Carpenter, C.B., on the increase of small-pox mortality in 

 London during the year ItSO. He pointed out the inadequacy of 

 the objection that a system of compulsory vaccination outraged the 

 rights of individuals, contending that in health, as in education, it 

 was the paramount duty of the State to secm'e, as far as possible, 

 the public advantage. The State, in his opinion, was morally 

 bound to intervene in such a matter between the parent and tlie 

 child, for the good both of the child and of society at large. He 

 proposed to speak with special reference to the outbreak of small- 

 pox in ISbO, which, he understood, was specifically mentioned 

 in the resolution that was to be moved in the House of 

 Commons by Mr. P. A. Taylor. That outbreak, according to his 

 view of the case, afforded grounds, not for the repeal of the 

 Act, but rather for making its operation more complete and 

 stringent. It was necessary first to consider the history of small- 

 pox, with regard to which very important statistics existed in the 

 bills of mortality for tlio last 200 years. In the case of other exan- 

 themata—scarlatina, for instance — doubts might have been cast on 

 the accuracy of the earlier tigui-es ; but small-pox had always been 

 clearly recognised and distinguished from other diseases, and no 

 such doubts could therefore be entertained. Now, from 1600 to 

 1G78, the general mortality of the kingdom was iiO,000 in every 

 million of living persons, and the small-pox mortality was 4,170; in 

 172B-57 the general mortality was 52,000 per million, and the small- 

 pox mortaUty 4,260 ; in 1771-SO the general mortality was 50,000, 

 and the small-pox mortality 5,020 — a slight increase, which 

 was probably due, as Dr. Hcbcrden said long ago, to inoculation. 

 However, the average small-pox mortality in the period from 1660 to 

 18S-0 was about 4,0t)0 per million. It was noticeable that at that time 

 the disease periodically appeared in its worst form, and was the terror 

 of all classes. Thus Louis XV. died deserted by all except Madame 

 du Barry, and the priests who chanted mass in the Chapelle 

 Ardente were said to have been "condemned" to do so. And in 

 1750 Horace Walpole wrote, " Lord Dalkeith is dead of the small- 

 pox in three days." These, of course, were instances in which the 

 disease appeared in its greatest intensity, and attacked the rich, 

 who in these days would ordinjuily have little to fear from it. He 

 could scarcely suppose that an outbreak of small-pox— say, in 

 Pimlico — would deter her Majesty from visiting Buckingham 

 Palace. For the decade lbOl-1810 the general mortality was 29,000 

 per million, and the small-pox mortahty 2,010. In 1831-35 the 

 general moitahty was 32,0(^0 aud the small-pox mortality had fallen 

 to 8S0. At that time he had himself seen as many as 100 cases of 

 blindness from small-pox in unvaceinated persons, aud it was pro- 

 bable that in the last century two-thirds of the patients at the eye 

 hospitals were blind from the same cause, while the proportion now 

 was only 5 per cent. In 1810 the Legislature provided the means 

 of vaccination, and the result was that the mortality fell to 400 per 

 million. Then came compulsory vaccination in 1653, and the 

 small-pox mortality in the decade 1851-00 was only 278 per million. 

 In 1861-70 the number was 270. Ho now came to thejears 1871-80, 

 which period was unquestionably exceptional. The mortality in 

 these years among unvaceinated persons was so extraordinarily 

 great, and the disease itself was so violent, as to suggest the notion 

 that it might be indeed the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Yet, 

 as far as he knew, no person who bore the evidences of vaccination 

 had died of small-pox in the last year. In 1871 the disease waa 

 severe everywhere in Great Britain, but especially in Scotland, 

 where compulsory vaccination had not been then adopted. Since 

 that time, however, vaccination had been made compulsory in 

 Scotland, where it was now enforced more effectually than in 

 England, the result being that for the last five years there had not 

 been twelve deaths a year in that country from small-pox. 



