80 REPORT — 1870. 



Evidences of Deprennon. 



(1) The general absence of clitfs, indicating that the sea had not been sufficiently 

 lono' at its existing level to excavate a high escarpment, implying a comparatively 

 recent change, probably of depression. 



(2) The current setting in from the Atlantic. The author contended that eva- 

 poration could scarcely compensate for the great influx of water from the land- 

 drainage of more than a third of Europe and a portion of Africa : this accession 

 ouo-ht to produce an outflow through the straits. As the width of the straits bears so 

 small a proportion to the area of the sea, the cun-ent setting in might be due to a 

 general sinking of the bed now going on, and too slight to be perceptible on the 

 margin of the area subject to the depression. 



(3) The extension below the present sea-margin at Mentone of limestone-caverns 

 and freshwater channels of subaerial origin. 



Evidences of Upheaval. 



(4) In a uniform rise of about 25 feet in distant parts of the Mediterranean of an 

 older coast-line, exactly con-esponding with the amount of emergence of the shell- 

 bored columns of the' Temple of Serapis. Mr. Gwyn Jeflreys had observed at 

 Antibes a shell-bed containmg recent Mediterranean species 25 feet above the ex- 

 isting water-line ; and to the north of Gibraltar another similar bed existed, imply- 

 ing an ancient littoral zone 24 feet higher than the neighbouring shore. The 

 Corsican marshes give evidence of a similar rise, the level flats being here and there 

 covered by delta- like ridges of alluvial drift ; these could only have been deposited by 

 the streams which now flow at their base, when the marshes were submerged at 

 least 20 or 25 feet. 



(5) The coast-deposits of Posttertiary age at Gibraltar, Tangier, and Cadiz in- 

 dicate various higher levels at which the Mediterranean has stood, ranging from 40 

 to 700 feet. 



Some RemarTcs on the Denudation of the Oolites of the Bath District. 

 By W. Stephen Mitchell, F.6.S. 



On Oeological Systems and Endemic Diseases. 

 By Thomas Moffat, M.D., F.G.S. 

 The writer showed that the soil has an influence on the composition of the 

 cereal plants grown upon it, and on the diseases to which the inhabitants are 

 subject. The district in which he practises consists geologically of the Car- 

 boniferous and New Red Sandstone or Cheshire Sandstone system.s. The in- 

 habitants of the first are engaged in mining and agricultural occupations, those of 

 the latter in agriculture. Ansemia, with goitre, is a very prevalent disease 

 amongst those living on the Carboniferous system, whilst it is almost un- 

 known among those living on the New Red Sandstone system ; and consumption 

 is also more prevalent amongst the inhabitants of the former. As ansemia is a 

 condition in which there is a deficiency of the oxide of iron which the blood na- 

 turally contains, the author was led to make an examination of the relative com- 

 position of the wheat grown on the soil of Cheshire sandstone. Carboniferous 

 limestone, Millstone-gi-it, and a transition-soil between Cheshire sandstone and the 

 gi'it. The result of the analysis shows that the wheat grown on the soil of the 

 Cheshire sandstone contains the largest quantity of ash, and that there is a larger 

 quantity of phosphoric acid in it than in the soils of the Carboniferous and MiU- 

 stone-gxit systems ; also a much larger quantity of oxide of iron than in either 

 of them. He has calculated that each inhabitant on the Cheshire sandstone, if he 

 consumes a pound of wheat daily, takes in nearly 5 grains per day of the sesqui- 

 oxide of iron more than the inhabitant of the Carboniferous system, and who 

 seems, therefore, to be subject to this great liability to anaemia in consequence of 

 the deficiency of iron and phosphoric acid in the food he consumes. It is not only 

 in the wheat grown upon the Carboniferous system that there is a deficiency in 



