83 
a whole year ought to he examined, but I imagine the 
results if carefully gone into will give no advantage to 
the use of pure soft water when compared with hard, for 27 
is a very high rate for London. In building up the skeleton 
of an adult large quantities of the phosphates and carbonates 
of limes are required. The well to do, who consume plenty 
of butchers’ meat, cheese, and new milk, may manage to 
obtain what nature requires, but for the poor, who live on 
sloppy tea, line white bread, a little butter, a trifle of meat, 
and plenty of soft water, where are they to get their neces- 
sary supply from ? It is not my intention to assert that the 
high rate of mortality is all due to soft water. No doubt 
there are many causes which help to produce it, but good, 
wholesome drinking water, containing carbonate of lime' 
and plenty of fresh air, which is hard to get in a close and 
crooked-built town of high warehouses, have in my opinion 
much to do with it. In my own case, I put a little lime in 
the drinking water used in my house, and I live on a sandy 
hill, well exposed to the winds of heaven. In all sanitary 
arrangements too much attention cannot be given to provi- 
ding plenty of fresh air and as much light as practicable. 
Obseivations on the Rate at which Stalagmite is being 
accumulated in the Ingleborough Cave/’ bv W. Boyd 
Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The only attempt to measure with accuracy the rate of 
the accumulation of stalagmite in caverns, in this country, 
is that made by Mr. James Farrer in the Ingleborough Cave 
in the years 1839 and 1845, and published by Professor 
Phillips in “ The Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coast of York- 
shire/’ (second edition, 1855, pp, 34-35). The stalagmite of 
which the measurements were taken is that termed, from 
its shape, the jockey cap. It rises from a crystalline pave- 
ment to a height of about feet, and is the result of a 
deposit of carbonate of lime, brought down by a line of 
drops that fall into a basin at its top, and flow over the 
