Botanical Geography of Southern Europe. 309 



of southern Europe from east to west. In like manner we have 

 three oaks. In Spain and Portugal there is one species of oak 

 with edible fruit, which was well known to the ancients. Des- 

 fontaines discovered it again on the mountains of Algiers, and 

 named it the Quercus Balluta ; and the Count Von Hoffmannsegg 

 and myself have to inform botanists, that it grows in Portugal 

 and Spain, but that, on account of its fruit, it is cultivated as a 

 forest tree at Portalegre in Portugal ; at the gates of Madrid it 

 is roasted and sold along with chestnuts. In Italy, another oak 

 having edible fruit makes its appearance, and one which Tenore 

 curiously enough regards as a variety of our oak (Quercus pe- 

 dunculata). Finally, in Greece, we have the Quercus Mgilops^ 

 the high, slender, and beautiful Vellanida, the Arcadian oak, 

 whose fruit was eaten by the ancient Arcadians, (the /8*A*w'p*y* 

 *vtps of Pythia), and of which the cups are imported by us un- 

 der the name of " Knopper" and used in tanning. The oak which 

 furnishes the gall-apples (Quercus infectoria) occurs on the 

 eastern coast of Greece, but is not abundant till we arrive in 

 Natolia. 



Description of a new Anemometer, by which the most minute 

 changes in the force or velocity of the Wind or current of 

 Air may be measured. Invented and constructed by Mr 

 R. ADIE, Optician, Liverpool ; read and described to the 

 Society of Arts for Scotland, by Mr JOHN ADIE, 25th May 

 1886.* 



IN no department of the science of Meteorology is the want 

 of a correct and sensitive instrument more felt than in the de- 

 termination of the force and velocity of the wind. A great va- 

 riety of suggestions have been made by scientific men of all na- 

 tions for supplying this deficiency, but no method has yet been 

 found generally useful, from the want of the means of compar- 

 ing the results obtained from one instrument with those obtained 

 from another; and also from their want of sensibility to small 



The Society's Honorary Silver Medal awarded to Mr R. Adie for this 

 communication, 7th December 1836. 



VOL. XXIT. NO. XLIV. APRIL 1837 X 



