Geological Society of London. 369 



cambe Bay, the same lower boulder-clay, there called "pinel," made 

 its appearance. After many visits to the section near the UJverstone 

 railway -station, he convinced himself that the pinel not only contains 

 seams of sand, but overlies a thick bed of finely laminated sand. It 

 wedges out upwards into an exceedingly contorted and false -bedded 

 mass of middle sand and gravel. The pinel he found running up the 

 hill-sides to an altitude of 800 feet. Above Soxitergate, at a height 

 of between 700 and 800 feet, he found a distinct line of demarcation 

 between the pinel and an upper boulder-loam which lower down 

 contained boulders of granite. The paper contained a particular 

 description of the completely isolated island-hill called Dunner- 

 holme, with its capping of upper boulder-clay and rounded pebbles, 

 many of them still sticking in the funnel-shaped cavities of the 

 underlying limestone, which they apparently helped to grind out. 

 The author described a great thickness of upper boulder-clay near 

 Barrow, and defined the north-east boundary of the granitic drift, 

 which he believed could not all have come from Eskdale in Cumber- 

 land. He likewise described the naturally sculptured large boulder- 

 stones of Stainton. On the west side of the Duddon, he could 

 clearly trace the pinel and middle sand and gravel, and he believed 

 an upper rubbly boulder-clay, the lower limit of which, however, 

 was not well defined. He found all the drifts, but especially the 

 upper, spreading out along the base of Blackcombe in the shape of a 

 regular terrace running up into its combes, and choking up its 

 gorges. He described the appearances presented and positions occu- 

 joied by the drifts at high levels on Blackcombe, and endeavoured to 

 trace a distinction between marine drifts, glacial moraine matter, and 

 ordinary "screes" or fallen debris. The author gave a particular 

 account of the enormous mounds of sand and gravel between Lan- 

 caster and Carnforth, described the mode of occurrence and striation 

 of the limestone boulders, and traced the latter to the action of sea- 

 ice on old sea-coasts around Warton Hill, etc. In conclusion, he 

 considered the mode of accumulation and derivation of the drifts of 

 North-west Lancashire, and compared them with the lower boulder- 

 clay, middle sand and gravel, and upper boulder-clay of the splendid 

 section, 150 ft. high, near Preston, and with the drifts of other districts. 



7. " On the Connexion of the Geological Structure and Physical 

 Features of the South-east of England with the Consumption Death- 

 rate." By W. Whitaker, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. 



The author stated that his investigation of this subject, which 

 was carried on in conjunction with Dr. Buchanan, was suggested by 

 the fact that improved drainage had been found to exert a marked 

 influence upon the average number of deaths by consumption incex*- 

 tain districts. The chief result arrived at by an examination of 

 fifty-eight registration districts in Kent and Sussex was, that " wet- 

 ness of the soil is a great cause of consumption ;" and this depends 

 not only upon the perviousness or imperviousness of the soils, but 

 upon their position as regards elevation and slope. 



Discussion. — Prof. Brayley meutioued a paper by Mr. Mackinnon on the same 

 subject, communicated to the Royal Society some years ago. 



VOL. VI.— NO. LXII. 24 



