AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. I99 



nearly destitute of living inhabitants, whether of 

 animals or plants. Sterile it might be for a time, 

 like the furrowed field exposed to the winter's 

 frosts, but it was for the purpose of ultimately 

 rendering it more fertile. For, most probably, 

 the luxuriant vegetation at present existing on 

 the globe, in a great measure owes its orio-in 

 to the Drift epoch, in the same manner as the rich 

 crop of wheat may be traced to the previous 

 fallow. 



In the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 

 for January, 1847, Charles M'Laren, Esq. F.G.S. 

 states the following as probable Causes of the 

 Cold of the Glacial Epoch : — « Poisson, an emi- 

 nent French mathematician, proposed an inge- 

 nious theory to account for the more intense cold 

 which anciently prevailed in several parts of 

 Europe, as evinced by the phenomena I have 

 described, and many others. It has been deduced 

 from observations made by the late eminent Prus- 

 sian astronomer, Bessel ; that our sun, with the 

 planetary system attached to him, is moving 

 through the celestial spaces, in a determinate 

 direction, at the rate of three million eight hun- 

 dred thousand miles per day. (Humboldt's 

 Cosmos, p. 152, Eng. Ed.) Now, as the stars, 



