March 22, 1894J 



NATURE 



495 



bacilli or vibrios, which in shape, size, motility, manner of growth 

 in the different media, more or less resemble the cholera vibrios 

 of Koch. Some of them also give the cholera- red reaction, 

 sooner or later, when grown in peptone salt culture. 



But there is at present known only one comma bacillus 

 from the diseased human intestine that shows certain cul- 

 tural characters, that grows at 37° C. in peptone salt 

 cultivation with great rapidity, and gives in very short 

 time the distinct cholera-red reaction ; and this is the comma 

 bacillus of Koch, found by him in the human intestine in 

 Asiatic cholera. From this it follows that if in any case of 

 choleraic disease this particular species should by microscopic 

 examination, and by the culture test, be dem'^nstrated as present 

 in the bowel, the conclusion is justified that we are dealing 

 with true cholera. 



In those isolated fatal cases of choleraic disease which 

 occurred in different localities in England during last autumn 

 (Leicester, Derby, Westminster, Doncaster, Yarmouth, and 

 others), apart from the symptoms and the pathological condi- 

 tions of I he intestine and the characteristic microscopic appear- 

 ances as to the distribution of the comma bacilli, this species of 

 vibrio was demonstrated by cultivation, and therefore we are 

 justified in saying that these cases were of the true or Asiatic 

 type, and we are further justified in saying that it was owing to 

 the prompt action of the sanitary authorities that these cases 

 were not followed by epidemic outbreaks. 



But while we can state from the bacteriological examination 

 that a particular case is true cholera, we cannot affirm with 

 equal reliability whether this comma bacillus plays any and 

 which role in the causation of the disease ; nor that a case in 

 which the bacterioscopic examination does not demonstrate the 

 presence of Koch's vibrios in the intestinal discharges is not 

 trup cholera ; and this for the important reason that in 

 various epidemic outbreaks of true cholera there occurred in 

 the same locality and at the same time, side by side, with un- 

 doub ed cases of Asiatic cholera, and presenting the same 

 clinical symptoms, the same pathology, and the same high 

 death-rate, a certain proportion of cases in which Koch's 

 comma bacilli could not be demonstrated. In what respects 

 the bacteriology of such cases differs from cases of sporadic or 

 English cholera, is a subject for future inquiry ; at present no 

 sufficient data are at hand. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OE 

 KINGDOM.' 



I. 



THE UNITED 



England and .Vales. 



Drift Survey. — In the early maps published by the Survey, 

 superficial deposits were generally left unrepresented. The 

 importance of these deposits in questions of ai^riculture, drain- 

 age, water-supply, and public health having at length been 

 recognised, it was determined that in future they should be 

 traced and shown upon the maps. As at first they were inade- 

 quately understood by geologists, the mapping of them could 

 not be made wholly satisfactory and complete. But as they 

 came to be more th ^roughly studied and more carefully traced, 

 they have been represented with increasing fulness and ac- 

 curacy upon the maps. It has been thought desirable to revise 

 and complete the earlier drift surveys in the north of England, 

 and to extend these surveys over the other parts of the country 

 where they have not previously been made. This renewed 

 examination of the ground is carried on upon maps of the scale 

 of .six inches to the mile, and advantage is taken of it to check, 

 and where needful to correct, the already published mapping of 

 the older geological formations uuderneath. 



As the Geological Survey advanced into the eastern counties 

 of England, the importance of the drift deposits became 

 increasingly manifest. Over large districts indeed it was im- 

 possible satisfactorily to delineate on maps the structure and 

 boundaries of the formations underlying the drifts which spread 

 as a deep cover above them. For such areas drift maps only 

 could be issued. 



1 Annual Report of the Geological .Survey for the year ending 

 December. 31, 1892. By Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., Director General. • 

 From the Keport of the Scien.--e and Art Department for 1892. (.Some of 

 those po tio is of tlie Report w nch describe the scientific results of the 

 Survey operations during the last few years are reprinted here). 



NO. 1273, VOL. 49] 



It was not until the original survey of the whole of England 

 and Wales had been completed that the systematic re-survey of 

 the drifts was begun on the six-inch scale, over those areas not 

 previously surveyed for this purpose. In the south-east 

 of England, where the work is under the charge of Mr. 

 Whitaker, it has extended from Huntingdonshire across the 

 counties of Bedford, Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Berks, 

 Wilts, Hants, and the south of Sussex. 



Tertiary.— T\\Q re-examination of the Tertiary areas to the 

 west of London for the Drift Survey has shown the general 

 accuracy of the old mapping, though the boundary-lines have 

 been occasionally improved. In Hampshire and the Isle of 

 Wight more extensive alterations have been necessary. Thus, 

 the Hamstead Beds, in place of occupying mere isolated 

 patches on the high ground, as was believed when the original 

 map was prepared, are now known to cover a large area. This 

 was proved by Mr. Reid, chiefly by the use of portable boring- 

 rods, such as had for some time previously been employed by 

 the Belgian Geological Survey. These tools have also proved 

 of great service in some recent work in the eastern counties, 

 Certain small outliers on the Chalk of Hampshire, shown as 

 Eocene on the old map, have now been placed among the 

 drifts, and have been mapped as " Clay-with flints." Probably 

 here, as is often the case in parts of the London Basin, the so- 

 called " Clay-with-flints " is in great part re-arranged Eocene 

 material. 



Cretaceous. — On the older one-inch maps the Chalk was 

 shown as one mass, no attempt being made to indicate its sub- 

 divisions. Indeed no such subdivisions were formerly recognised, 

 save a general grouping into Chalk-with-flints and Chalk- 

 without- flints. Sometimes the lowest portion was separately 

 referred to as Chalk Marl. In later surveys, however, advan- 

 tage has been taken of the opportunity of tracing on the 

 ground the subdivisions that can now be mapped. These are 

 as follows : — 



Upper Chalk. 



Chalk Rock. 



Middle Chalk, with Melbourn Rock (at the base). 



Lower Chalk, with Tolternhoe Stone. 



Chalk Marl. 

 The separation of the thick mass of Chalk into so many 

 distinct subdivisions has both an economic and a scientific 

 interest. By revealing the actual structure of the Chalk and 

 the outcrops of its several members the new mapping renders 

 essential service in questions of water supply. It likewise 

 indicates the undulations into which, in consequence of subter- 

 ranean disturbances, the Chalk has been thrown. These 

 undulations, though often too gentle to be safely inferred from 

 surface exposures, are apparent when the outcrops of the several 

 subdivisions of the Chalk are continuously traced. 



In the Chalk-area of Hampshire, Mr. Hawkins, by mapping 

 out these horizons, has proved the general accuracy of the inter- 

 pretation of the structure of that region given by Dr. Barrois. 

 The uprise at Winchester is well marked. Lower Chalk being 

 there brought to the surface. The folds traversing the Chalk in 

 the western part of the Hampshire Basin, though more strongly 

 marked than those of the London Basin, can only be satisfactorily 

 made out by mapping the subdivisions of the Chalk. Some of 

 the ruptures attendant on the plication of the rocks, so marked 

 in Dorsetshire, are prolonged even into Sussex, and have been 

 detected by Mr. Reid as far east as Eastbourne, where on the 

 foreshore the Cretaceous strata are repeated by faults and over- 

 thrusts. 



It seems not impossible that the detailed and accurate map- 

 ping of the disturbances in the Chalk may ultimately give a 

 clue to the depths of the underlying Palseozoic rocks, a 

 question of the utmost practical importance in regard to the 

 tracing of coal-bearing deposits beneath the south of England. 



In 1891 phosphatic Chalk, closely resembling that which is 

 commercially worked in the North of France and in Belgium, 

 "as noticed for the first time in this country by Mr. Strahan. 

 The bed is exposed in a Chalk-pit at Taplow, but at present has 

 not been detected elsewhere. 



The relations of the Gault and Upper Greensand have long 

 been a matter of uncertainty. Mr. Bristow, the late Senior 

 Director, believed that the two were really one formation, one 

 being locally developed at the expense of the other. Mr. 

 Godwin-Austen regarded the Upper Greensand as a shore- 

 deposit, in part contemporaneous with the Gault of deeper 

 waters. Other geologists have expressed similar views. These 



