92 Observations on the Climate of Italy 



future period submit to the Academy. I have resolved, how- 

 ever, no longer to defer giving publicity to my experiments iden- 

 tifying the fluid oils of grain and potatoe spirit, having had my 

 attention drawn by Dr. Kane to a recent volume of Poggen- 

 dorff's Annalen, containing a paper by M. Mulder, in which 

 I find myself anticipated on the other point; and the butter of 

 corn spirit is satisfactorily shown to be what I had concluded 

 it to be, not entirely from my own experiments, but from a 

 comparison of them with the researches of Pelouze and Liebig. 

 Mulder also notices the third principle which is associated 

 with the cenanthic acid and cenanthic aether, and describes it 

 under the name of oleum siticum. The object therefore of 

 the present communication is much more limited than it was 

 originally intended to be, professing only to announce the de- 

 tection of the potatoe-spirit oil of Pelletier and Dumas in fer- 

 mented infusions of the mixed grains employed by the distil- 

 ler. But as Mulder conceived his discovery of sufficient in- 

 terest to justify him in giving it to the scientific world, I shall, 

 I trust, be pardoned for bringing an analogous fact under the 

 notice of the Academy. 



XV. Observations on the Climate of Italy and other Countries 

 in ancient times*. 



A VAGUE notion seems to have prevailed for some time 

 past among persons conversant with ancient authors, 

 that the climate of Europe in the classical ages of Greece and 

 Rome must have been considerably colder than at the pre- 

 sent day. Latterly this question has been taken up by two 

 philosophers, who from a consideration of the vegetation have 

 come to a different conclusion. Most persons probably have 

 read the interesting essay by Arago in the Annuaire for 1834, 

 who states that several of his facts have been borrowed from 

 the writings of Schouw. The conclusions drawn by these 

 writers are probably in the main correct ; but some of the 

 facts stated by them appear to require modifications, which 

 are more fully explained in the following pages. 



I. Vegetation of Ancient Italy: the beech, the date-palm^ the 



olive. 



It has been said that Virgil speaks of the beech as growing 

 in the neighbourhood of Rome ; whereas now the climate is 

 too hot for that tree, which is not found till we reach a con- 

 siderable height on the Apennines. In fact, Tenore (Cermo 



* Communicated by the Author, 



