the Changes of Isothermal Lines. 239 



from which we must infer that very little of the temperature of 

 Europe can be due to the gulf stream. Taking the south-west winds 

 as the counterbalancing currents for the perpetual NE. trade-winds, 

 they cannot derive their heat from passing over the warm water of 

 the gulf stream, for that is not in their tract. Subsequent obser- 

 vation must determine whether our S. and SW. winds derive their 

 heat from what is generated in the form of dry parched air on the 

 African Sahara ; for the reasons given, I cannot but help believing 

 that it is so, and that the west coast of Europe enjoys a climate dis- 

 tinguished for its high temperature above all other lands of the same 

 latitude through the influence of the great desert of Africa. 



On British Eocene Serpents and the Serpent of the Bible. By 

 t Professor Owen. 



A few bones of serpents have been found in the superficial stalag- 

 mite, and in clefts of caves, in peat bogs, and the like localities, which 

 bring their occurrence and deposition within the period of human 

 history. None of these Ophidian remains, however, have offered any 

 differences in size or other character from the corresponding parts of 

 the skeleton of our common harmless snake (Coluber natrix.) As 

 yet, no Ophidian fossils have been found in British fresh-water for- 

 mations of the pre-adamitic or pleistocene period, from which forma- 

 tions the remains of the Mammoth, Tichorrhine Rhinoceros, great 

 Hippopotamus, and other extinct species of existing genera of Mam- 

 malia have been so abundantly obtained. Between the newest and 

 the oldest deposits of the tertiary period in geology, there is a great 

 gap in England, the middle or miocene formations being very incom- 

 pletely represented by some confused and dubious parts of the crag 

 of fluvio-marine origin in which teeth of a Mastodon have been 

 found. 



The deposits in which the remains of the large serpents of the 

 genus Palaophis occur so abundantly, carry back the date of their 

 existence to a period much more remote from that at which human 

 history commences. Yet, as the strange and gigantic reptiles that 

 have been restored, and, as it were, called again to life, from times 

 vastly more ancient, realize, in some measure the fabulous dragons 

 of mediaeval romance ; so the locality on our shore of the English 

 channel in which the Eocene serpents have been found in most abun- 

 dance and of largest size, recalls to mind, by a similar coincidence, 

 the passage cited by an accomplished and popular historian, in his 

 masterly sketch of the rise and progress of the English nation. 

 " There was one province of our island in which, as Procopius had 

 been told, the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such 

 that no man could inhale it and live. To this desolate region the 



k 



