280 
NATORE 
[ Fan. 13, 1870 
chance efforts of individuals ; an organisation is formed 
with a directing, a centralised authority, to which the 
whole body defer. : 
This is now wanted in England for Science, which can- 
not be cultivated without system, nor can it be governed 
without system. Ina former number of this journal an 
article from the pen of Prof. Roscoe gave an interesting 
picture of the scientific organisation of Germany, which 
may be taken as typical of the Continent. Their arrange- 
ments, which carry Government intervention to a point 
not as yet contemplated by anyone in England, so far 
from having the deadening effect imputed to Government 
aid, has produced in large numbers men of the highest 
attainments and the largest and most original views, and 
is developing a continuity of results of the greatest prac- 
tical and theoretical value. The physical education and 
intelligence of the people is confessedly ahead of that 
which the same classes in England can boast. The arts 
in which we once justly claimed pre-eminence are in many 
instances now more advanced with them than with us 
mainly because the principles on which they depend are, 
more assiduously studied, and the artisans by whom they 
are practised more thoroughly instructed by them than by 
ourselves. Many branches of trade in England already 
painfully attest their superiority. As a matter of fact, 
individual enterprise, which it is so easy glibly to pro- 
nounce the incarnation of vigour, has not borne the fruit 
at home which Government support, with its supposed 
emasculating tendency, has yielded abroad. 
Are we, then, to fall back in the race of nations, to see 
our trade and our manufactures dwindle away, and our 
naval and military systems take second rank, because 
there is an apparent noble independence in the attempt 
to do single-handed what single hands are proved inca- 
pable of doing? We assert that, other things being as 
nearly equal as variations in religion, customs, and form 
of government will admit, the degree of cultivation of 
Science by nations will ultimately determine their places 
in the human family. No nation on earth has a greater 
abundance of natural resources and of accumulated wealth 
than we; no people have higher gifts or nobler aspi- 
rations ; none need less fear despotic interference from its 
Government ; no nation, therefore, is better qualified to 
carry out a system which has proved so successful in less- 
favoured countries, 
The question that presses for decision is, What shall we 
call on the Government to contribute to scientific advance- 
ment, and in what manner shall the scientific administra- 
tion of the future be constituted? The present Govern- 
ment is ready, we doubt not, to perform its part, if only 
the necessity be shown by competent testimony to exist. 
It is the duty of men of science, who alone-can speak on 
the subject with authority, to give this testimony, and to 
help the Legislature to place on a footing worthy of a 
great nation a department of its duties which has hitherto 
been, to a most injurious extent, overlooked. 
THE THAMES SUBWAY 
Seve attempts have been made to pass under 
the Thames. The chalk and alluvial deposits of 
the valley at Gravesend would even now offer formidable, 
if not insurmountable, difficulties to the attempt, once 
made, to tunnel through strata with water sources so un- 
manageable. The Thames bed at Limehouse had 
hidden dangers, which, however, did not succeed in 
stopping the bold attempt, made some forty years since, 
to pass beneath the river—an attempt carried in fact to 
a successful issue in spite of innumerable difficulties, 
but at an overwhelming expense. The skill and 
ingenuity displayed were equal to the occasion, but the 
object attained was not commensurate with the magni- 
tude of the work, and for years it served rather as a warn- 
ing than an example to be followed. 
A better geological knowledge of the Thames valley 
has, however, been gradually acquired during the last half- 
century ; and it has become evident that while some parts 
of the valley present the greatest difficulties to the execu- 
tion of any such work as a tunnel under the river, other 
parts present conditions singularly favourable for such 
works. It is found that the chalk e, Fig. 2, which disappears 
at Croydon and reappears at Watford, passes under London 
at a depth of from 200 to 300 feet; that next over the 
chalk come beds of sand, shingle, and clay, from 80 to 
100 feet thick taken together, c and @; next above these is 
a single massive formation of clay, in round numbers from 
100 to 200 feet thick under London, and acquiring a still 
greater thickness—as much as 450 feet—at places not far 
distant. This clay is so compact and tenacious, that, 
except in a few places, it is perfectly impervious to 
water. The various railways in the neighbourhood of 
London, as at Primrose Hill, Copenhagen Fields, Norwood, 
and elsewhere, show how readily tunnels can be made 
through it. It has also been ascertained that this clay, 
known to geologists as the London Clay, though thin 
and uncertain at Limehouse, dips westward from that 
place and gradually acquires a greater thickness, until at 
London Bridge it forms a mass 129 feet thick. It there- 
fore became evident that while, at and below Limehouse, 
any tunnel passing under the Thames would have to 
pass through the soft and permeable beds of sand and 
shingle lying between the London Clay and the chalk— 
beds charged with water—forming in fact originally the 
great water-bearing beds under the London Clay at 
London, and therefore almost impassable to any tunnel 
under the Thames; above Limehouse, and thence to 
London Bridge, the gradually increasing mass of London 
Clay presents ground more and more favourable for the 
execution of such a work. If a place could be found 
where, on the one hand, without going to too great a 
depth, the alluvial beds on the surface and any accidents 
in the Thames bed itself, and on the other hand the beds 
of sands and shingle below the London Clay, could be 
avoided, while at the same time the intermediate London 
Clay was thick enough to allow of the passage of a tunnel 
and for a sufficient thickness of roof and floor, it was clear 
that at such a place the conditions for the construction of 
a tunnel would be as favourable as could be desired. 
The first to apply this knowledge was Mr. P. H. Barlow, 
C.E., F.R.S., who fixed upon a spot intermediate between 
London Bridge and Limehouse (where the thickness of Lon- 
don Clay must be about 80 ft.), and at a sufficient distance 
below London Bridge to render an underground passage 
of the Thames a work of great public utility. A space of 
vacant ground near the western entrance to the Tower 
was obtained from the Crown; and on the Middlesex side 
a small wharf offered sufficient width for the tunnel to 
