December 21, 1899J 



NA TURE 



83 



is made also to the presumably Tertiary granite of 

 Arran, whose intrusive character was so clearly appre- 

 ciated more than a hundred years ago by Hutton. 



The Pleistocene notes include some general remarks 

 on the method of investigation of the deposits of this 

 and Recent ages. These notes are followed by an excel- 

 lent account of the Drifts near Uttoxeter. It is remarked 

 that the prevalent drift of the higher ground is a red 

 sandy loam, or more rarely clay, containing numerous 

 rounded quartzite and other pebbles mainly derived from 

 the Bunter. Evidence was obtained that in spite of its 

 general resemblance to rain-wash the material is the 

 local equivalent of the true boulder clay, and has had 

 a similar derivation from the moving mass of land-ice 

 by which the whole country has been covered. It is 

 remarked that the movement of the ice has not been 

 determined by the shape of the ground in the vicinity, 

 nor by the presence of the elevated Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone tract of the Weaver Hills, but has been consequent 

 upon the pressure of the great ice-sheet which was piled 

 over the lower ground to the westward and north-west- 

 ward. The occurrence in new localities of marine shells 

 in the Drift of North Staffordshire is likewise noticed. 

 Further particulars are also given of the Glacial Drift in 

 South Wales. The height to which this extends seems 

 limited only by that of the ground. Not only till with 

 glaciated boulders, but numerous striated rock-surfaces 

 have been observed at heights ranging up to 2000 feet 

 on the Old Red Sandstone. In the Isle of Man the Glacial 

 series has been found by a deep boring to be of unusual 

 thickness, apparently descending to between 470 and 500 

 feet below sea-level. 



From various parts of Scotland observations on the 

 Drifts are recorded. In Aberdeenshire there is evidence 

 of the occurrence of blocks of the Glen Derry diorite on 

 the hillside above Allanmore, at a distance of more than 

 six miles to the south-east of the parent-mass. These 

 blocks could not have been brought to their present posi- 

 tion by the later or local glaciation, but must have been 

 transported by the ice- sheet over ridges nearly 3000 feet 

 in height. In Inverness-shire the high-level terraces of 

 fluvio-glacial gravel have been traced to an elevation of 

 1020 feet. Many observations have been made on the 

 Drifts in Ross-shire and in thej Black Isle. Again, in 

 Skye it has been observed that at the epoch of maximum 

 glaciation only the highest summits of the Cuillins stood 

 above the ice. This is true also of Blaven, and probably 

 of the Red Hills, though the crumbling granite of which 

 these latter are composed is not so well fitted as the 

 gabbro to retain evidences of glaciation. 



In the southern counties of England, as well as in 

 Scotland and Ireland, various notes have been made on 

 Pleistocene and Recent deposits, on the " Head," clay- 

 with-flints, raised beaches, sand-dunes, peat and other 

 accumulations. 



The new railway-cuttings which have been examined 

 are those made by the Great Western Railway Company 

 between Stert, near Devizes, and Westbury, in Wiltshire, 

 and those between Wootton Bassett, in Wiltshire, and 

 Patchway, in Gloucestershire. Cuttings on the Great 

 Eastern Railway between North Walsham and Mundesley 

 are briefly noted. 



In this abbreviated account of some of the leading 

 observations recorded in the " Summary of Progress of 

 the Geological Survey for 1898," we have sufficiently 

 indicated the work that is being done, and which we 

 hope will be carried on until the whole country has been 

 mapped as carefully as possible on the six-inch scale. 

 Until that work is accomplished, it can never be con- 

 sidered that the more pressing work of the Survey has 

 been carried out. Regarding this as necessary, and 

 looking to the work already performed, it is not to 

 be denied that a very great deal of the more im- 

 portant work of the Survey has yet to be done. This 



NO. 1573, VOL. 61] 



remark applies, not only to the maps, but to the 

 explanatory memoirs so needful in illustration of each 

 map. The list of publications which is appended to the 

 report before us shows that a number of new memoirs 

 have been issued, while others are in progress ; and it is 

 hardly necessary to add that the surveying alone will not 

 supply the public needs if the maps are not accompanied 

 as soon as possible with the memoirs which describe the 

 facts and explain the structures depicted on the maps. 



SIR RICHARD THORNE THORNE, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S. 



SANITARY science has suffered a severe loss by the 

 death, on Monday, of Sir Richard Thorne Thome, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. , principal medical officer to the Local 

 Government Board. As a guardian of the public health, 

 he was largely responsible for the security of the United 

 Kingdom against serious epidemics, and for the intro- 

 duction of sanitary measures which have resulted in a 

 diminution of mortality ; and as an investigator he made 

 numerous important contributions to the science of pre- 

 ventive medicine. 



Sir Richard Thorne Thorne was born at Leamington 

 on October 13, 1841, and was therefore fifty-eight years 

 of age at the time of his death. From an obituary 

 notice in the Times the following particulars concerning 

 his career have been derived. He received his medical 

 education at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and obtained 

 the membership of the Royal College of Surgeons in 

 1863. In 1866 he became M.B. of the London Univer- 

 sity, taking a double first class, and for a short time he 

 held some hospital appointments in London ; but about 

 1870 he accepted office in the Medical Department of 

 the Privy Council, which was afterwards transferred to 

 the Local Government Board. In this capacity he 

 continued for many years to discharge the routine 

 work of the office, in the way of mspections and 

 reports, until 1885, when his mastery of the French 

 language led to his selection as delegate of the 

 British Government at a first International Sanitary 

 Conference, which was held at Rome, and was followed 

 by others at Venice, Dresden and Paris. In these con- 

 ferences he took from the first a leading part, and was 

 mainly instrumental in convincing the representatives of 

 other Governments of the futility of quarantine and of 

 the facility with which, notwithstanding the presence of 

 infectious disease, commerce might be liberated from 

 vexatious restrictions which had previously hampered it. 

 In this way he became a conspicuous public benefactor, 

 not of this country alone, but of many others ; and he 

 was appointed her Majesty's Plenipotentiary for signing 

 the Sanitary Convention of Dresden in 1893 and that of 

 Paris in 1894. He early received the distinction ofC.B., 

 and that of K.C.B. was conferred upon him in 1897, soon 

 after he had succeeded the late Sir George Buchanan as 

 the head of his department. He was a Crown member 

 of the General Medical Council, vice-president of the Epi- 

 demiological Society, Pillow of the Royal Society and of 

 the Royal College of Physicians, LL.D. of Edinburgh, 

 Doctor of Science of the Royal University of Ireland, and 

 held numerous foreign distinctions. Apart from his 

 many official reports relating to the public health, he was 

 the author of works on the progress of preventive medi- 

 cine during the Victorian era (1887), the " Milroy " 

 lectures on the natural history and prevention of diph- 

 theria (1891), and of the " Harben " lectures on the 

 administrative control of tuberculosis (1898). 



By these and other publications Sir Richard Thorne 

 Thorne assisted scientific progress, and improved the 

 conditions of public health. The influence of his works 

 on national sanitation will long be felt. 



