ratified by the concurrent testimony of all the miners and Deputies of Congress from the Sierra, &c., with whom I have made it a subject of conversation, as a point interesting to European men of science.

On the Goitre and Cretinism in the Cordillera.

I have seen it stated that the highest elevations of these diseases on the Cordillera is 14,100 feet. One would think that such precision of statement should be grounded upon exact observation. Before leaving Edinburgh for Peru in November last, I had an opportunity of expressing my doubts on the subject to the author of that valuable work -the Physical Atlas. With the frankness and candour becoming his position in science, I found him most willing to receive the few hints which my long experience of Peru authorized me to offer on this topic. I therefore conclude, that the brief notice I can offer in illustration of the habitat of goitre and cretinism in our Andine climates may not be altogether useless in the present state of European knowledge on the subject. Goitre may be met with at the specified elevation of 14,100 feet, or at 15,000 feet, but only in travellers or visitors at the mines, &c., from the valleys where the disease is endemic. In all the inter-Cordillera warm valleys of Peru, looking eastward, goitre more or less exists; and the usual mode of getting rid of it in recent cases is, to abandon the warm climate of the sheltered valley for the cool table lands or cold heights of the Cordillera. In the region. of the Andes, where cold prevails all the year through, goitre is never endemic; and cretinism is very rare in Peru, even in those parts where goitre abounds. Thus, in the valleys of Cusco and Huanuco, those affected with goitre are generally as acute in mind as those that are free of this malady. I understand the same is generally the case in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia, where goitre is common in some districts and not in others—a difference ascribed to the quality of the water. Dr Lorenti, who long resided in Huancayo, says that goitre contracted there, is removed by a change to the cooler climate of Juaja, a few leagues distant; that the town of Concepcion,

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five leagues from Juaja, has goitre, whereas La Geronimo, only one league to the south of Concepcion, has it not-an immunity ascribed to the good water of the latter locality. In the warmer and lower districts to the east of Juaja, and also in the mild climates of Andamayllas, there are very largely developed goitres; and those affected by them are, by Dr Lorenti's account, often dull and stupid, and their children generally deaf and dumb, and are called “Upas” or “ Opas,” in the Indian Quichua tongue. But of all parts of Peru the remote province of Patas is the most infected with goitre, and even cretinism. This province, more than any other part of the Sierra of Peru, consists of uneven broken ground-successions of high hills and deep hot valleys, in which the sugarcane and tropical fruits are freely produced. The town of Patas, the ancient capital of the province of the same name, is a mining place, from which silver, gold, and gold-washings are exported. The temperature of this auriferous town is warm throughout the year; and though it rains abundantly from October to April, during the dry season it is entirely free from frost. Its population is estimated at 150. The town rises on each side, from the bottom of the valley, like an amphitheatre, and is divided by a small ravine into two parts. On one side of this natural boundary almost all are said to have goitre, many among them deaf and dumb, and also idiotic and ill-shaped, as well as ugly. On the opposite side of the ravine or rivulet, the goitre is not only less in size, but much less frequent. On the side where the malady abounds, the people drink spring-water; while on the side that it prevails least, they drink from running water. At a distance of one league from the town there is a supply of brackish water, and those who drink of it are free from goitre, and it is a cure for those afflicted with it. The above account I repeat on the authority of Mr and Mrs Marcos,-the governor and his lady, -of the district of the Marañon de Conchucos. Two months past I attended this lady at the Italian Hotel in Lima, and cured her of endemic goitre, which she had contracted during eight months' residence in Patas, where her husband had mines. Finding that both she and her husband and their daughter (ten years old) became affected with goitre, they

abandoned their mines, and retired to the colder regions, where Mr Marcos and his child recovered, and the goitre became much reduced in herself. I should from all these facts conclude, that in the Andine valleys of Peru goitre is never endemic above an elevation of from 9000 to 10,000 feet; and that if accidentally met with in the Cordillera, it must have been contracted elsewhere. I may add on this subject information received by me regarding other parts of the American Continent for example, Dr Dertruge (a most competent authority, as one of the medical attendants of the army of Bolivar in Venezuela, New Grenada, and Ecuador) tells me that he has seen some cases of goitre, and even of cretinism, in the warm district of Riobamba, and in the mild climates of the Quebradas, or glens of the hill lands of Quenca, less elevated than that of Quito; but that in New Grenada he has seen goitre of so enormous a size as nearly to conceal the face, and also cases of cretinism, especially in the provinces of Locovio, Marequita, and Ocana, but only in warm climates, never in the Cordillera, where it appears incapable of development. Dr Lorenti confirms these.

statements.

On the Vestiges of Extinct Glaciers in the Lake Districts of Cumberland and Westmoreland. PART I. By EDWARD HULL, A.B., F.G.S. With two Plates.

In the following pages I propose to describe the principal effects referable to glacial agency along the southern watershed of the range of mountains stretching from Bowfell on the west to High Street on the east; reserving for, I hope, a future occasion, the like phenomena of the northern slopes.

This primary line of watershed passes across most of the highest points of the central chain along the limits of the two shires, and is a serious obstacle to intercommunication between the northern and southern districts, the lowest of the passes by which it is crossed-Dunmail Raise, at the head of Grasmere, being 725 feet above the sea. This watershed was once the snowshed of two systems of glaciers, which, flowing in opposite directions, drained the snowfields of Scawfell, Bowfell,

Helvellyn, Fairfield, and High Street, with their accompanying heights.*

The Highlands of Britain and Ireland are generally recognised as having been the seats of glaciers during the Postpliocene Period of the Northern Drift; but the mountains and valleys of North Wales have alone been treated in a systematic manner by more than one author,† while the probably no less interesting regions of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the Killarney mountains in Ireland, and the Scottish Highlands, in all of which the traces of extinct glaciers are remarkably distinct, are almost virgin soil, as far as this part of their history is concerned.

In the case of the Lake District of England, observers are still sadly in want of maps on a sufficiently large scale, and having the physical features accurately portrayed. The maps of the Ordnance Survey may, however, soon be expected for Westmoreland; and with the contour lines of the "six-inch" scale, observations on the glacial and drift phenomena (which are so closely connected with relative and actual elevations) will be much facilitated. Mr J. Ruthven's Geological Map, in which the formations are traced according to the classification of Professor Sedgwick, is generally accurate as regards the geological boundaries, but is defective in the shading, a defect which is painfully felt when dealing with the local causes which have guided the movements of old ice

streams.

Northern Drift.-The Carboniferous district of Lancashire, stretching southward from Morecambe Bay, is covered by a thick accumulation of gravel, generally in a matrix of Boulder clay, often forming terraces along the banks of rivers to a depth of 100 feet. This gravel, with boulders of all sizes, is formed of the detritus of the mountainous district immediately northward; and along with blocks of slate, grit, and

* For fuller descriptions of the physical features and geological structure of the Lake District, see the Memoirs of Professor Sedgwick and Mr W. Hopkins, in the Transactions of the Geological Society, London.

† Dr Buckland, Mr Darwin, and more recently Professor Ramsay, who, in a recent work of the Alpine Club, "Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers," has described in great detail the glacial vestiges of the Snowdon range.

porphyry, there are included, south of Kendal, boulders of Carboniferous limestone from the hills of that formation, which form the advanced outposts of the mountains towards the south. I mention these blocks particularly for this reason, that they are derived from ranges of hills too low ever to have been the seat of glaciers, so that their presence, so far from their parent masses, must be due either to the transporting power of shore ice, or to their having become imbedded in the bergs of ice which, as shall presently be shown, drifted down from the loughs and fiords of the interior.

On approaching the valley of Windermere, the depth of the Drift as a whole decreases; and, owing to the irregularity of its bed, it occurs in force only in the hollows and along the flanks of the valleys. As we trace it towards the mountains, it loses its stratified aspect, and becomes a chaotic accumulation of rock fragments, generally rounded or sub-angular, frequently striated and imbedded in a base of mud, covering the flanks of the hills to a height of about 800 feet. At the head of the valley of Windermere it forms somewhat terraced surfaces, distinguishing it from moraines, which in this district almost invariably occur as an aggregation of rounded heaps, differing altogether from any form assumed by marine Drift.

The shape of the moraines, such as that of the valleys of Easdale, Grisedale, and at the head of Langdale, is indeed quite peculiar, resembling a collection of large barrows; and it is a point on which I am still in doubt, whether their present aspect is that which they originally assumed, or whether it is due to atmospheric agencies.

Rock-surfaces.-The hills of Ireleth slate and Coniston grit, which enclose the lakes of Coniston, Esthwaite, and Windermere, in striking contrast to the rugged outline of the mountains of chloritic slate and porphyry" (Professor Sedgwick) of the interior, have received a rounded and undulating outline. The Coniston flags, however, which form an intermediate zone, from their extreme liability to split along the planes of jointage, cleavage, and bedding, frequently rise in small serried ridges, running parallel to the strike (north-east to south-west).

The cause of this rounded outline may, I think, be clearly

NEW SERIES.-VOL. XI. NO. I.-JAN. 1860.