ON THE SOURCES OF MEAT WHICH INFLUENCE CLIMATE. 457 



benas, and others usually treated as greenhouse plants, survived the frost, some of 

 them being scarcely affected by it. Flowering roots of Cyclamen Persicum were 

 lost, but seedlings raised the preceding summer escaped. Old plants of the 

 Pelargoniums and Mesembryanthemums survived, though young ones of the 

 same species were killed. 

 Thames Ditton, Surrey, 

 July 18, 1838. 



ON THE SOURCES OF HEAT WHICH INFLUENCE CLIMATE.* 

 By a Member ok the Liverpool Natural History Society. 



My attention was first directed to the laws which govern the existing tem- 

 perature on the surface of our globe, through a desire to know how far the recorded 

 observations made at the greatest depth to which we have yet penetrated — all of 

 which shew a greater or less increment of temperature as we descend — could be 

 accounted for by known causes, before they are assigned to a source where some 

 difficulties still demand explanation. 



In pursuing these incpuiries, I have imperceptibly found myself in a much more 

 extensive investigation than I at first contemplated, with the evidence often not 

 a little perplexing ; but as some of the points from which I have received the 

 existing theories, referring to the central mass of our globe, suggest to me doubts 

 as to the consistency of those theories with the observed phenomena, I have 

 thought that it might not be unworthy of the attention of this Society to state 

 where the difficulties occurred to me. My doing so is not from any desire to see 

 shaken the conclusions of some of the most distinguished men of our day, but in 

 the hope that its members, in discussing the subject, may be able to elucidate 

 more correct views, and assist in the promotion of an inquiry to remove objections 

 which have still to be met. 



Further, when it is remembered that the heat at the earth's surface is a mean 

 between two opposite extremes, it naturally becomes an object of interest to us 

 to know on what basis the stability of the temperature allotted to the surface of 

 this planet rests ; the more so since modern researches tend to prove that, before 

 the historic era, our climates were much warmer than they now are ; and also 



* We regret that the able author of this paper (read at the June meeting of the Liverpool 

 Natural History Society) will not permit the ensuing pages to appear under the sanction of his 

 name. This, however, by no means weakens the cogency of his arguments, which, we are requested 

 to observe, he is willing to discuss, through the medium of The Naturalist, with any one who 

 may question the justness of his positions. — Ed. 



