88 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
is better established, its influence upon the human frame cannot 
be determined. The grand total of deaths from all causes under 
consideration during the six years was 143,249, and the average 
population 867,313. The corrected population for each year is 
employed as the standard of reference for each year’s mortality. 
The inquiry is led into the influence of weather upon mortality 
from individual diseases, and the several classes of disease, as well 
as into the mortality from all causes. A detailed account of the 
inferences deduced by these investigations would involve the repro- 
duction of a series of tables and diagrams for which the Society’s 
Proceedings are not available, and all of which will be found in the 
extended paper. 
2. History of Popular Literature, and its Influence on So- 
ciety. By Wm. Chambers, Esq., of Glenormiston. 
Having introduced the subject, Mr Chambers referred to the 
earliest examples of popular literature in the reign of Elizabeth ; 
they were embelished with wood engravings, believed to be executed 
in G-ermany. Such was the origin of those very curious tracts 
known as “chap books,” now very rare, and much prized by biblio- 
graphic amateurs. The subjects of these books resembled the Folk- 
Lore of the G-ermans, and were the embodiment of the superstitions, 
fancies, and traditions of a much earlier period ; the least excep- 
tionable being the ballads of a heroic and tender kind. Next w^as 
traced the rise of newspapers, and the importance they began to as- 
sume in the reign of Queen Anne, a period also signalised by the 
popular writings of Steele, Addison, and Defoe. The imposition of 
the stamp-duty in 1712 checked this sudden rise of popular litera- 
ture ; and various circumstances postponed its reappearance until 
the reigns of George lY. and William lY., by which time great 
advances had been made in education and in a general taste for 
literature, — the writings of Cowper, Burns, Campbell, Wordsworth, 
Scott, Byron, and others, along with the influence of certain reviews 
and magazines, having latterly given much impetus to thought. 
Mr Chambers then spoke of the origin of Chambers’ Journal in 
February 1832, the Penny Magazine in the subsequent March, and 
other cheap prints, devoted in an especial manner to popularise 
