This article would be imperfect without a notice of the question—What constitutes live-birth? This is a point on which the most distinguished obstetric authorities have differed: some holding that where there is muscular movement, there is life; while oth ers maintain that where respiration has not been proved to have taken place, the child was still-born. Amongst the most celebrated lawsuits bearing on this point, we may mention that of Fish v. Palmer, tried in 1806, and that of Brook v. Kelloek, tried in 1861. In the last-named case it was decided by the vice-chancellor, sir J. Stuart, that a child may live for some time after birth, and not breathe, the absence of signs of breath ing being held to be no proof of its being born dead. It was given in evidence that there was pulsation of the funis after separation of the cord, and the beating of the heart was regarded as proof of live-birth. Hence we may regard it as now established in English law, that respiration is not required to establish live-birth. Nor do the laws of France or the United States require that the child shall have breathed. In Scotland, the law requires not only that the child shall have breathed, but that it shall have cried; and in conformity with this law, a child which lived, breathed, and died in convulsions at the end of half an hour, was declared to have been born dead (Dyer's Reports, 25).
FOG, or Misr, is the visible watery vapor sometimes hanging near the surface of the earth, and caused, as clouds are, by the precipitation of the moisture of the atmosphere. This takes place when a stratum of atmosphere comes in contact with a colder stratum, or with a portion of the earth's surface, as a bill, by which it is cooled, so that it can no longer hold in solution as much moisture as before. It takes place also when a cold
stratum of atmosphere comes above a moist warm portion of the earth's surface, the exhalations from which are precipitated and become visible as they ascend into it. Thus, fogs are formed over lakes, rivers, and marshes in the evening, because the water is then warmer than the atmosphere above it. The fogs seen in the morning very often disappear by being dissolved in the atmosphere as the temperature increases.
FOG, or MisT (ante.) On the Atlantic coast of America fogs are frequent, and are for the most part caused by the varying temperature of the ocean currents. The cold cur rent coming down Baffin's bay is by the revolution of the earth thrown against the coast from Newfoundland down to cape Hatteras, where it passes under the gulf stream which runs w. of it, but in an opposite direction. The gulf stream, that vast body of warm water from the tropics, heats and saturates with moisture the air under which it passes. When the wind is in a direction to drive this warm moist air over the cold cur rent, the moisture condenses into fog and is blown inland. Therefore an e. or s.e. wind rill bring fogs along the coast of the eastern states and Newfoundland. Further towards the s. only an e. wind will bring these fogs. The same holds good on the Pacific coast, where there is a corresponding cold stream near the shore and a warm stream further out. Fogs are brought to Oregon and California by w. and n.w. winds.