538 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 
esting to the savans. It may be remembered that Mr. Whymper 
was commissioned a year or two ago, by the British Association and 
the Royal Society, to make a series of expeditions into the interior 
of Greenland, for the purpose of collecting such natural history 
data as might be available for use in determining the former cli- 
matic conditions of the country. The first of these expeditions was 
made during the summer of 1867, and the paper read by Mr. 
Whymper gave an interesting account of the present flora as com- 
pared with that of the miocene period, of the animals which at pre- 
sent inhabit the country, and of the modern Greenlanders, both 
from a physical and a moral point of view. The former flora 
embraced firs, birches, poplars, oaks, beeches, chesnuts, planes, 
walnuts, hazels, the vine, and the magnolia, while the largest 
shrubs now found in the country have a maximum diameter of 
scarcely an inch. The rich collection of plants brought home by 
Mr. Whymper is now in the hands of Professor Heer, of Zurich. 
Glacial action has been so great in Greenland that the whole 
surface has been worn and polished in such a manner that it is 
impossible to walk in other than native boots ; European boots are 
quite useless. It is gratifying to learn from Mr. Whymper that 
the morality of the Greenlander stands very high. Honesty is 
scarcely a virtue with him, i is a habit. An interesting discussion 
followed the reading of this paper, Sir Charles Lyell, Admiral 
Ommaney, Sir E. Belcher, and Professor Rolleston taking part in 
it. The last-named gentleman said that he had examined sixteen 
skulls brought home by Mr. Whymper, and his conclusions were 
that they had been the skulls of savage people of carnivorous habits. 
They were quite destitute of sutures, as is the case in the carnivora. 
Admiral Sir E. Belcher would not consent to have the Greenlanders 
called Esquimaux ; there is no communication between them, and 
the same is true of the Esquimaux and the Red Indian. 
On the subject of “Overland Communication between India 
and China,” General Sir A. Scott Waugh read a report on behalf 
of the Committee appointed at the Dundee Meeting of the British 
Association; and the business of the day was concluded by an 
interesting paper from Dr. E. Perceval Wright “On the Seychelles 
Islands,” unless we mention one by Sir Walter Elliott, “ On Sepul- 
tural Remains in Southern India,” which was not read from want 
of time, and its general scope only was indicated by the author. 
No fewer than eight papers were set down for reading in 
Section E on Tuesday. Of course, it would scarcely have been 
possible to persuade their authors that the papers were uninteresting, 
even though the attempt had been made to do so; and from sheer 
necessity the papers had in one or two instances to be read in 
snatches or their details to be mentioned in abstract. Not the 
