Scientific Intelligence. ^AS 



second year. Pocoke, who travelled in 1737, speaks of the cultivation of 

 the vine by the Cophts in Fayoura, and, what is still more important, 

 there is in the higher part of Upper Egypt, at Esn^, twelve leagues to the 

 south of Thebes, a vineyard which has an extent of several feddams. Its 

 original object was doubtless to yield grapes for eating, but Jussuff Kia- 

 chefF, formerly soldier in the army sent to Egypt, and who was taken 

 prisoner by the Mamelukes at the period of the evacuation, and remained 

 in the east, informed rae that he farmed the vineyard ; that he made ex- 

 cellent wine of the produce, and obtained a quantity equal to that afford- 

 «d by the vineyards of Europe. We may then conclude from these facts, 

 that if in Egypt, till within a few years, the vine has not been cultivated 

 on a great scale, it is because the inhabitants do not drink wine, and that 

 we are not to draw the inference, that there is a maximum of temperature 

 above which the vine does not yield the means of making wine." 



3. Indications of a Change in the relative Levels of the Land and Sea 

 on the West Coast of Scotland. — Mr Smith of JJordanhill is at present en- 

 gaged in the investigation of tiiis subject, and has found at Glasgow, be- 

 tween the diluvium and the recent beds of sand formed by the river, a 

 marine deposit of finely laminated clay containing marine shells, all of 

 them identical with recent species, except a natica. This deposit has 

 been met with from a few feet to seventy feet above the present level of 

 the sea, and besides shells, contains sea- weeds and bones of fish and sea- 

 fowl. It would, says Mr Smith, be termed a recent pliocene formation 

 by Mr Lyell. The shells seventy feet above the level of the sea, were 

 found on the banks of Loch-Lomond ;• and Mr S. has observed near 

 Glasgow, shells at the height of fifty-five feet contained in clay, which 

 must originally have been found at the bottom of the sea, and is now sixty 

 feet above high water-mark. j<j, 



4. Facts relating to the Soulemment or Rising of Scandinavia at a fi>- 

 cent epoch. By M. Kbilhau. — In the remarks I am about to offer, it is 

 not my intention to speak of the remarkable rismg taking place at the 

 present time in a part of the districts situated near the Baltic, but rather 

 to treat of the risings which, at a period more or less remote, have oc- 

 curred at certain intervals, and may be compared to great shocks ; and 

 whose traces are so analogous to the facts which have been observed, 

 particularly in Chili immediately after the earthquake of 1822, that we 

 are at once induced to place them in connexion with the earthquakes which 

 are still very distinctly felt in Scandinavia. The traces of these risings 

 consist here, as in many other countries, chiefly of remains of marine 

 animals left in places which are now elevated to a height of several hun- 

 dred feet above the level of the sea, and also of ancient shore lines 

 wliich are found dry at certain distances from the present margin of the 

 sea. In the " Magaxin for Naturvidenskaberne (2d Series, vol. i.), I 



* Vide Wemerian Memoirs, for Adamson's Observations on the Recent. S^ 

 Shells found on the shores of Loch-Lomond. "' '^' ^ ''^ ' ' 'v^Jfe^ * ^vu# 



