derings of its forefathers from one region to another, and their gradual modifications of form. In looking at our English fauna, we may hope to recognize certain forms as belonging to our area from Palæozoic times, others as dating from Mesozoic, others again as Eocenic, others as Miocenic or later; in some cases we shall assign such an age to the order or genus, and a later age to the specific modification. Professor Huxley conceives that distinct provinces of the distribution of terrestrial life have existed from the earliest periods- -earlier than those of which we have any record. Whilst in the dry land of our own area during Carboniferous times Amphibia existed, in some other terrestrial provinces of that period Birds, Reptiles, and Mammalia may have been developing. The Permian epoch marks the beginning of a new period, and during the Trias dry land existed in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, as it does now. The mammals, birds, and reptiles developed in the preceding epoch spread into this great continental area called Arctoga. Depression then commenced in parts, and special developments occurred in various regions. At the early part of this period, Professor Huxley conceives Australia to have been separated and to have remained dry land ever since. The discovery of the remarkable Australian Ganoid since his address, confirms his conclusion. The Mesozoic continent was probably continued across the Pacific area to what is now the province of Austro-Columbia, the characteristic fauna of which dates from this period. At a later part of the Mesozoic period, upheaval of the Atlantic shore and depression of the Pacific caused a westward movement of the Vertebrate fauna which took possession of new lands and increased in extent up to the Miocene epoch, from which period we may clearly trace all the Mammalian forms characteristic of the great continental area of our present world-exclusive of South America, Australia, and New Zealand. From the Devonian period to the present day, the four great oceans-Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Antarctic-may have occupied their present positions and only incessantly changed their channels of communication and coast-lines.

The attempt in this address to follow back the origin of Vertebrate forms of life, needs only to be succeeded by similar efforts with regard to Invertebrate groups, and more especially as to plants, the same method of comparing present distribution and past, as far as it is yet known, being used, and we shall ultimately attain most valuable conclusions as to both Geological and Biological history.

The paleontology of the greater part of the earth has yet to be investigated in order to bring light on this matter.

8. METEOROLOGY.

THE most important paper which we have to notice in this number is one by Dr. Julius Hann, "On the Climate of the Upper Regions of the Alps," which appears in the 'Journal of the Austrian Meteorological Society. The Swiss stations are situated in many instances at considerable heights above the sea. Five of them are at a level exceeding 6000 feet. The station of Hoch Obir, in Carinthia, is at a similar height. However, the information derived from these points gives us hardly any knowledge of the climate prevailing above the snow-line, and the difficulties which presented themselves in the way of obtaining accurate observations from such an elevated region seemed almost insurmountable, until they were overcome by M. Dollfuss. This gentleman succeeded in persuading three Swiss guides to spend an entire year, from August 1865 to August 1866, on the Pass of St. Theodule, under the Matterhorn. The level of this station is all but 11,000 feet above the sea.

The barometrical observations were made three times a-day, while those of temperature, wind, and weather, were recorded eleven times daily.

The first point on which Dr. Hann touches is the extreme of cold registered, which he finds to be only 6° 5 F. The winter of 1865-6 was a warm one, but still the temperature just cited is unexpectedly high for so elevated a station, considering that much greater cold has been experienced at lower stations in Europe nearly on the latitude of the Pass in question, e. g., - 12°·5 at Geneva in January, 1838, and - 20° at Prague in 1830. We need not refer to the intense frost felt in corresponding latitudes in America, where, in the State of New York, the mercury has been known to freeze.

The self-registering minimum thermometers, which have been placed on the summits of so many mountains by the members of the Alpine Club, have not yielded results at all commensurate with the labour of depositing them in their resting places and subsequently reading them, so that we are driven to the ordinary records at high levels to find a confirmation of the minimum observations at St. Theodule. It is found to be universally true that the extremes of cold are registered not on the summits of the mountains but in the valleys where the chilled air collects.

The winter climate was on the whole cold, as the thermometer never rose above 32° from November to April, but the weather was very enjoyable notwithstanding. At the high level of their station the observers found the intensity of the solar heat on a calm day to be so great that they frequently were sitting in the sun in their shirtsleeves, when the thermometer in the shade was close to zero F. They often noticed the snow melting when the observed temperature was

7° or 8° F., and even on the peak of Mont Cervin itself they more than once saw traces of a thaw.

As a compensation for the unlooked-for mildness of the winter climate, the summer at the station was extraordinarily cold. The mean temperatures of the three summer months was 32°-3, and that of July, only 33° 5. These are the lowest average summer temperatures that have ever been reported; for the mean of Dr. Kane's stations in Smith Sound was 35°4 for the summer, and 39° 9 for July. It is well known that at Yakutsk and other stations in Siberia, as well as in North America, where the winter temperature is excessively low, the heat of the summer is comparatively high, approaching and even surpassing that observed in these islands. The result is that a rapid and vigorous, though short-lived, vegetation is produced.

It is hopeless to look for anything of this nature on the Pass of St. Theodule, where frost occurs every night. The perpetual sunshine of an Arctic summer effectually prevents any damage to the growing plants from this cause.

The annual march of temperature at high stations is remarkable. Comparing the observations now under discussion with those from other stations at somewhat lower levels, Dr. Hann finds that February is the coldest month, sometimes even March, while December is extraordinarily mild. In this month it is found that the temperature increases with the elevation owing to the accumulation of cold air in the hollows.

This fact shows the great difficulty of determining accurately the decrease of temperature with height, in any district, the local conditions which influence the result being so very various. However, the Swiss observations throw some light upon it, and Dr. Hann has submitted to the Academy at Vienna a paper on the subject, in which he has calculated provisionally a table to show the rate of this decrease. From this paper we learn that the level of the isothermal contour of 32° varies from 1100 feet in January to upwards of 11,000 in July. If we look for an annual temperature of 0° F., which is about that of Rensselaer Harbour, we find it to lie about 2000 feet over the top of Mont Blanc, while the lowest July temperature at sea level, that of Northumberland Sound, is met with at the level of 10,000 feet in the Alps.

Comparatively little is said about the other meteorological elements. The barometer is dismissed with a few words; but as regards the distribution of moisture the author goes into more length. In winter the air on the mountain tops is dry and clear; in summer it is much more cloudy. The action of the "courant ascendant" is analogous to the foregoing, for the mornings are much less commonly cloudy than the afternoons. As to the actual amount of precipitation at the upper stations, as compared with the lower, there is not much to say. The data for rain and snow are

very uncertain, but on the whole much less fell on the Pass of St. Theodule than might have been expected. The heaviest fall of snow recorded was only 2 feet deep, while in many of the Alpine valleys a depth of 6 or 7 feet is not uncommonly known to fall in the space of twenty-four hours.

The same journal contains a paper by Dr. Dellman, "On the Electricity of Clouds," being one of a series of papers on atmospherical electricity. Our space will only allow us to give some of the most important conclusions. They are as follows:

All clouds are electrified, and oppositely so in different parts of the cloud,

As far as the observations at Kreuznach go, they prove that all clouds have a negative centre surrounded by positive bands or zones. The density of the electricity diminishes towards the circumference, but the maximum density is not at the centre.

A cloud can only give rain by the occurrence of an electrical discharge.

With reference to meteorology in Russia, a report has been drawn up by a Committee of the Academy of St. Petersburg on the organization of the system. The most important suggestion which it contains is, that the empire should be divided into separate districts, with a central observatory furnished with self-recording instruments in each. Three of these establishments are now in existence. St. Petersburg; Helsingfors, for Finland; and Tiflis, for the Caucasus. Taschkend is designed as the central station for Turkestan. To these thirteen others are to be added. These institutions are to be quite independent of each other, each being surrounded by its own auxiliary stations, and publishing its own results.

Professor Mohn, of Christiania, has brought out a paper "On Sea-temperatures between Iceland, Scotland, and Norway," based in part on the observations of the Scottish Meteorological Society, and illustrated by charts for the four seasons and for the year. The isothermal curves, at all seasons except the summer, exhibit very sharp bends pointing north-eastwards. Professor Mohn calls the line joining the summits of these curves the thermal axis of the district, inasmuch as on either side of it the temperature decreases. This thermal axis lies parallel to the coast of Norway, at a distance of about 120 miles, excepting in the summer months, when the warmest water is found in the Cattegat, and the thermal axis is only traceable along a line running from the North Cape towards Spitzbergen. This thermal axis indicates the course of the Gulf Stream in these waters, which is rapidly cooled in its progress northwards, on the one hand by the ice in the neighbourhood of Iceland, and on the other by the cold mainland of Norway.

The last number of the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society' contains a very suggestive paper by Dr. R. Angus Smith

"On Chemical Climatology," or, in other words, on the impurities of atmospherical air. In addition to the ordinary analysis of the gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, Dr. Smith proposes to. collect and determine the foreign matter suspended in it. In dry weather, or in covered places such as hospital wards, he shakes some water in a large bottle, containing about a gallon of air, and renews the air as often as necessary. In wet weather he collects rain. The preliminary results are very interesting from a sanitary point of view, but their general bearing is more chemical than meteorological. The author hopes "to be able to tell plainly and authoritatively if a place is close or otherwise; and to say that the rain or the air when washed must not show more than a given amount so as to be fit for respiration. In this way it may be possible authoritatively to fix a limit to the density of population, and the extent to which manufactures may be carried on within a given area." The large amount of solid matter in specimens of rain collected in Glasgow leads Dr. Smith to connect the fact with the great mortality of that town. We are glad to see that a more extensive investigation of the subject is being undertaken, and that rain is being collected at many different stations to be subsequently analyzed by Dr. Smith.

Mr. Buchan gives a preliminary paper "On the Rainfall of the South of Scotland," which is chiefly of local interest, as the raingauges are very unevenly distributed over the country. The driest district is the lower part of Teviotdale, where Jedburgh reports 21.99 inches; while the greatest fall is on Ettrick Pen, at a height of 2268 feet, where 71.73 inches were collected. However, the observations on hill-sides show most clearly that no law of increment with height can be assigned-the conditions of rainfall are dependent to so great an extent on the lie of the hills. The fall in the South of Scotland is far less than that in the West Highlands, owing to the fact that Ireland drains the south-west winds of much of their moisture.

The last few numbers of the 'Proceedings of the British Meteorological Society' do not contain many papers of interest. The fortyeighth number is entirely taken up with a paper by Mr. Glaisher "On the Daily Rainfall at Greenwich for the last Fifty-five Years.” Although the period is so long, the numbers vary very much from day to day, and the irregularities are not eliminated even by grouping the results for periods of 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. The only practical conclusion arrived at is, that all the periods of least rainfall occur during the first three months, and the heaviest between the months of June and December. The graphical representation of the results gives a very irregular curve. The absolute minimum of daily fall occurs about the end of March, between the eightieth and ninetieth day of the year, and the absolute maximum is noticed in the last half of October, between the 290th and 300th days.