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relation to the vast quantities of deleterious matters which 

 are vomited into the atmosphere from the chimneys of 

 London. The horizontal movement of the air is at a 

 minimum, and thus altogether insufficient to sweep these 

 noxious matters out into the surrounding country. The 

 impurities therefore ascend into the air over London ; 

 and when no longer buoyed up by the warmer air with 

 which they began the ascent, they fall under the influence 

 of the general downward movement of the atmosphere ; 

 and this downward movement is accelerated by the solid 

 impurities becoming saturated with condensed aqueous 

 vapour, coal-oil, and tarry substances. Hence the 

 specially noxious fogs of large towns settle near the 

 surface, are no more than a few fathoms in depth, and 

 are at the maximum where chimneys are planted thickest, 

 the situation low-lying and confined, and where conse- 

 quently the horizontal circulation of the air is absolutely 

 arrested. 



If we would then overcome, or in any way mitigate, 

 the terribly fatal efiects of our city fogs, it can be done in 

 no other way than by Parliament interposing with a 

 legislation which will not only effectually stop the emana- 

 tion of deleterious exhalations from manufactories, but 

 also compel the combustion of the smoke arising from 

 ordinary fires in dwelling-houses. As regards the latter, 

 where the real difficulty in legislating lies, it may be 

 stated that we already have appliances for thoroughly 

 burning coal, the use of which would be attended with an 

 immense saving of money to the community, as well as 

 the prevention of the painful recurrence of periods of 

 such widespread sickness and mortality as London passed 

 through in the beginning of the present year. But it is of 

 little use in science showing how this terrible evil may be 

 cured if the authorities make no attempt to put her hardly 

 obtained results into practice ; it would cost little to 

 give both Dr. Siemens's and Mr. Moncrieff's methods a 

 fair trial on something more than a miniature scale. 

 But what are some of the obstacles to such a practical 

 course may be seen from our correspondence columns 

 to-day. 



WHAT IS CIVILISATION f 

 The Past in the Present. What is Civilisation? By 



Arthur Mitchell, M.D., LL.D. 8vo. pp. xvi. and 354. 



(Edinburgh : David Douglas, 1880.) 

 T^HIS interesting volume, as may be inferred from the 

 -L title, embrac-s two cognate but at the same time 

 somewhat diverse subjects — the one the survival, or 

 possibly the reintroduction, of objects and customs, which 

 are usually regarded as primitive, among the civihsed 

 nations of the present day; the other the nature and 

 origin of civilisation. 



As Rhind Lecturer on Archaeology Dr. Arthur Mitchell 

 selected these two subjects as the topics on which to 

 enlarge, and devoted six of his lectures to the first and 

 four to the second ; and these lectures, illustrated by 

 nearly 150 excellent illustrations, form the body of his 

 book, to which is added a long appendix and a detailed 

 analytical table of contents. 



The facts brought forward in the first portion of the 

 work, though for the greater part by no means new to 

 most archaeologists, are of considerable general- interest, 



and will appear sufficiently striking to the ordinary reader. 

 The peregrinations of the author in the remoter districts 

 of Scotland and the neighbouring groups of islands have 

 brought him in frequent contact with those among whom 

 ancient customs are most likely to have survived, whose 

 domestic appliances are often of the same simple cha- 

 racter as were those of their ancestors generations and 

 generations ago, and whose ordinary life has also been 

 but little affected by the advance in material civilisation 

 of their fellow-countrymen. To these objects and customs 

 so persistently surviving from the Past into the Present 

 the term " neo-archaic " has been applied by Prof. 

 Rolleston ; and it is precisely these objects that a practised 

 archaeologist declines to regard as ancient, unless the 

 circumstances of their finding justify him in so doing. 

 Foremost among them is placed the whorl and spindle, 

 an appliance for spinning still in use in parts of Scotland, 

 as it is throughout the whole of the continent of Europe ; 

 and which indeed is never likely to be entirely supplanted 

 by the spinning-wheel or other machinery, so long as the 

 use of the spindle can be combined with an out-of-doors 

 occupation, such as tending sheep or cows. All will agree 

 with Dr. Mitchell that the mental power of those Scotch 

 women who still use the spindle and whorl need not be a 

 whit inferior to that of those who do not use it, and some 

 will go farther, and place the shepherdess who spins in a 

 higher rank than the one whose hands are idle all the 

 day long. That a spindle should be made of a form to 

 do without a whorl, or that a potato should be substituted 

 for the latter, are regarded by the author as signs of the 

 art of spinning by hand having reached a state of degra- 

 dation ; but if producing the greatest effect with the least 

 possible trouble is any sign of progress, such an opinion 

 is questionable. 



In all such cases the external circumstances of a family 

 or group of families must be taken into consideration ; 

 and if it be cheaper or more easy to employ articles of 

 the simplest and rudest character than to purchase, it 

 may be from a distance, the appliances of modern art, the 

 simple methods and appliances will survive. Netting 

 and knitting by hand will thrive by the side of netting 

 and knitting by machinery, as the long hours of a winter's 

 evening, which might otherwise be wasted, can thus be 

 utilised at practically no cost ; and it seems more remark- 

 able that the simple form of narrow loom for webbing, of 

 which Dr. Mitchell gives a figure, should have become 

 almost extinct, than that it should have survived. 



A flint for striking a light may be cheaper and in 

 some respects more convenient than lucifers ; and the 

 "knockin'-stane " and mallet are not less effective for 

 their purpose than the most expensive pestle and mortar. 

 The earthenware " craggans " are as cheap and as well 

 adapted for the ends they serve as pots thrown on the 

 wheel ; and in countries where carriage is difficult or 

 extensive water power scarce, the quern or hand-mill and 

 the little Norse-mill may still hold their own ; as they did 

 in St. Alban's in the fourteenth century, when they com- 

 peted with the high charges for multure at the Abbey 

 mills. The survival of the black houses and beehive 

 houses in the Hebrides may also probably be reduced to 

 a question of cost. Perforated or grooved stones are 

 cheaper than plummets of lead as sinkers for nets and 

 lines ; and for working in water a pivot and socket of 



