ON FOG. 
35 
Map of London, published by Stanford, they will find that 
Regent’s Park and Holland Park — two fog-haunted districts — 
are both upon the clay. The Holland Park district is indicated 
in this map by a tongue- shaped piece of clay wedged in between 
gravel to the east, and brick-earth to the west ; and it is pro- 
bably owing to this fact that fog is “ more dense in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of Holland Park than in the streets of 
either Kensington or Hammersmith/’ which are both upon the 
gravel.’ 
On the 10th of the same month an interesting letter appeared 
from Paris, strongly corroborative of the writer’s views as given 
in a previous page : — 
‘ The present agitation,’ says Mr. Sandeman, ‘ concerning 
fogs which is engaging so much attention in London may now be 
studied here with much greater advantage. The fuel consumed 
has undergone a remarkable change within the last ten years, 
and each individual can appreciate the change which has taken 
place in the frequency and density of our fogs, entirely attribut- 
able to the enormous increase in the consumption of coal. Ten 
years ago it was about 150,000 tons per annum as compared with 
700,000 last year. Coal is rapidly replacing wood, and must 
continue to do so, on account of the much greater and yearly 
increasing cost of the latter. Paris has to-day been visited by 
a fog which would not lose much by comparison with one of our 
own London ones ; and the well-known electric lights of the 
Avenue de 1’ Opera were unable to penetrate it much better than 
their yellow gas confreres of the Rue de Rivoli. For Paris there 
is yet a chance, as all recognise the immense advantage of 
anthracite and other smokeless coals ; and, fortunately, the pre- 
sent generation can remember when this state of things was 
wholly unknown. In London we have been brought up to look 
upon it as an inevitable accessory of the winter months, but here 
there is a much more favourable opportunity for experiment and 
proof.’ 
Mr. Edwin Chadwick, at a recent meeting of the Society of 
Arts, contributed an essential factor to the discussion by noticing 
the effect of drainage in relieving a district of fogs ; instancing 
Richmond Park, which was once the site of heavy fogs and 
mists not contaminated by the 4 blacks ’ of London, but which 
are now comparatively free from them. Mr. Gr. J. Symons, at 
the same meeting, made some good practical observations, 
agreeing that fogs are due to a wet soil, and that they had been 
exceptionally intense of late years, because the years had been 
beyond the average wet ; but he denied that they were on the 
increase, or any worse than those of years ago. Low tempera- 
ture with high barometric pressure of the nature of an anti- 
cyclone he held to be, with a cold soil, the meteorological con- 
