190 Scientific Intelligence.^ Geologi/. 



fossils are perfectly distinct at the extremes of the tract through 

 which the strata are distributed. 



9. 0?i the Distribution of Living and Fossil Plants. — 

 Count Sternberg lately read a memoir before the Bohemian 

 Society on some peculiarities of the Bohemian Flora, and on the 

 climatic distribution of the plants of the former and the pre- 

 sent world. No remarkable variety would be expected in a 

 country like Bohemia, whose highest mountains are more than 

 100 fathoms below the snow line of its degree of latitude, whose 

 low lands do not descend to the sea coast, and whose Flora con- 

 tains little more than 1800 species of vegetable productions ; 

 yet Bohemia, which is environed by primitive mountains, exhi- 

 bits many peculiarities both in the mineral and vegetable king- 

 doms. In the deep valleys in the vicinity of Prague, the Pod- 

 baba and the Scharka ; on the limetone walls of the transition 

 mountains which intersect the Berauner circle, particularly at 

 Karlstein ; and on the conical mountains of the circle of Leitme- 

 riz, there are plants which must be considered as ornaments of 

 the European Flora, and these phenomena correspond with what 

 has been frequently witnessed and expressed, that is, that the 

 forms of plants depend, partly on the chemical nature of the soil 

 in which they grow, and, in a more general view, on the climatic 

 relations, arising from the operation of Ught and heat. When 

 we compare the individual genera and species discovered by 

 Humboldt and Bonpland on the chain of the Andes, — by 

 Wahlenberg in Lapland, — by R. Brown among the plants ga- 

 thered on Melville Island,* Sec, — the result of the comparison 

 is, that, in the furthest north, where the snow region is lowest, 

 the same plants occur as are met with towards the south, high 

 up on mountains, where the snow region also is much elevated 

 above the sea ; and that, at both extremities, the highest, as 

 well as the lowest, there are found particular genera and spe- 

 cies, wanting in the middle region, and which have yet a 

 mutual affinity. These observations respecting the plants of 

 the present world, may, with the same result, be extended 

 to those of the former world. The greatest number of im- 

 pressions of plants found in the secondary series of rocks 

 nearest the older coal formation may, with probability, be tra- 

 ced back to the families of Lycopodia, of ferns (Filices), of 



