SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



7 



being abolished it ought to be made more worth}' 

 of a nation possessing such mining interests as 

 ours. It is difficult to believe that the committee 

 can be aware of the mischief which would result 

 from its removal, or of the extent to which the 

 removal would be opposed. If technical education 

 is to be encouraged our museums must be multi- 

 plied and made more accessible to the many 

 instead of being diminished or concentrated in a 

 suburb where they can only be a luxury of a few." 

 After all, the value of a museum depends on its 

 use for practical purposes, and not as a show place 

 for visitors. That use is largely controlled by 

 accessibility. We contend with Professor Boyd 

 Dawkins and many others of equal authority, that 

 the removal of the Jermyn Street Museum from 

 such a central and accessible point as Piccadilly 

 Circus would be a grave mistake. It should be 

 remembered that there is a large section of 

 society, and that among the actual taxpayers who 

 provide the funds for the Science Museums, who 

 frequently find necessity to refer to them. In 

 such cases one cannot trust with satisfaction a 

 deputy, no matter how skilled. It should be re- 

 membered that the necessity of a museum for 

 reference purposes does not end with the cramming 

 of students for examination purposes. If that 

 were so, nothing could be better than the central- 

 ization at South Kensirgton. 



The annual vote for the Museum of Practical 

 Geology, Jermyn Street, which is attached to the 

 Geological Survey, is £3,966, a paltry amount 

 in comparison with the annual grant of £74,307 

 lor the Science and Art Department at South 

 Kensington alone. The saving to be gained by 

 the removal of the Geological Museum to 

 Kensington would be so small that the cost 

 of such removal would absorb the saving for some 

 time to come. It would be a different matter if 

 the Science and Art Department at South 

 Kensington were illiberally treated by Parliament 

 and was starved. Then there would be some 

 excuse for securing a geological collection for 

 teaching purposes, even by annexation. Such 

 excuse does not exist, for out of the £74,000 a year 

 spent by the Department at Kensington, a typical 

 collection could, in time, be purchased. If such 

 be impossible, let the students walk round the 

 corner to the Natural History Museum in Crom- 

 well Road, where is probably the finest geological 

 collection in the world. 



Rather than remove the museum from Jermyn 

 Street, let the Government make it worthy, as 

 Professor Dawkins says, of the important mineral 

 resources of Britain. 



John T. Carrington. 



ORIGIN OF THE HUMBER MUD. 



By Thomas Sheppard.* 



TT is only too well known that there are enormous 

 -*■ accumulations of mud and sand in the estuary 

 of the Humber. The question as to where it all 

 comes from is, therefore, only a natural one. The 

 usual reply is, that it comes from the Rivers Ouse, 

 Trent and Hull, but the more the subject is exam- 

 ined the more difficult it is to positively decide upon 

 the original source of the particles of mud with 

 which the Humber water is impregnated, and the 

 more is one convinced that the mud does not all 

 come from the rivers which drain into the Humber. 

 It will be admitted that the mud in the Humber 

 is accumulating. A most notable example is at 

 Reed's Island, between North and South Ferriby. 

 Twenty-five or thirty years ago this was a com- 

 paratively small island, with a plot of grass in the 

 centre on which a few cattle were reared. Now the 

 island is hundreds of acres in extent and has an 

 enormous number of cattle grazing upon it, and it 

 is annually increasing in size. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Spurn and Sunk Island also, as in other 

 parts of the Humber, new land is continually being 

 formed, whilst the Humber Channel itself is almost 



*Paper read at a recent meeting of the Hull Scientific and 

 Field Naturalists' Club. 



choked with sand and mud banks. Taking all these 

 facts into consideration, it seems hardly possible 

 that the material brought down by the rivers is 

 sufficient to account for the vast accumulations of 

 sediment in the estuary and on its banks. 



If the rivers Ouse, or Trent, or Hull, be 

 examined at ebb tide, when the normal amount of 

 water is flowing down, it will be seen that the 

 waters are comparatively clear, and though a 

 fairly large amount of material may be brought 

 down from the higher reaches of the rivers in 

 solution, very little appears to be coming down in 

 suspension, and it is the latter material which 

 mostly affects the question. It is a significant 

 fact that when the tidal waters are flowing up 

 stream, the water is much more muddy and coffee- 

 coloured than when the waters of the rivers only 

 are descending in their channels. Undoubtedly a 

 large quantity of detritus is carried along by the 

 rivers, but this is mostly derived from the high 

 ground near their sources, and the bulk of it in all 

 probability is filtered out amongst the herbage on 

 the banks of the streams, or else goes towards 

 building up the alluvial fiats so characteristic of 

 the Ouse and Trent. 



