7^5 
i88o.] 
Fog Lore. 
and possessions they will sally out into the suffocating air 
and wander through the endless labyrinth of darkened streets 
in the vain attempt to reach the open country, and, weaned 
and stifled, will at last lay down and die. Such, stripped of 
its more sensational features, is the prospedt held up to our 
view Unfortunately, whilst we may justly pronounce such 
a crisis very improbable, it is still within the verge of the 
^°Thus in 1783 a fog — to which we had occasion to refer in 
our last number*— is said to have covered nearly the whole 
of Europe for about two months. What security have we 
against the recurrence of such a phenomenon ? 
^But without speculating on a visitation so horrible, even a 
winter such as that of 1879-80 is not a trifling evil. The 
hindrance to intercourse, whether by rail, river, or road, 
and the consequent general stagnation of business ; the waste 
caused by the unusual consumption of gas, oil, and candles 
represent, together, a very palpable tax on the community. 
The average Londoner found his expenditure increased and 
his profits diminished. Most serious of all was the increased 
death-rate. The mortality from affections of the organs of 
respiration rose to a fearful point, and many who survived 
the fog had still received then a fatal injury. What wonder, 
then, that in prospedt of another severe winter we are 
anxiously inquiring if there is no remedy ? 
To begin, then, what is the nature of fog ? We are gene- 
rally told that fog, mist, and cloud are one and the same 
phenomenon, differing merely in degree, _ or in position, and 
being in every case formed of a multitude of excessively 
minute vesicles of water, filled with air and suspended in the 
atmosphere. Such a colleftion of watery vapour when float- 
ing aloft in the air we call a cloud, and when it rests upon the 
surface of the earth a fog. But this view is not universally 
accepted, or rather, perhaps, it seems not applicable to all 
Ca Dr" R Angus Smith, F.R.S., describest a fog which 
he observed at Reikjavik, in Iceland. The particles 
of this fog were exceptionally large, perfectly spnerical 
and not hollow. It rolled along the streets of the town like 
a cloud of dust. . 
There are, further, two distinct kinds of fog, the wet and 
the dry. The former, like clouds and mountain mists, which 
are in reality the same thing, deposit a dew on the leaves of 
* Journal of Science, November, 1880, p. 706. > . 
t Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, Series 
II., vol. 5 - 
