Royal Society. 63 
Scientific knowledge is arrived at by repeated efforts, with imper- 
fect observation and half-true hypotheses ; and every effort is re- 
garded as good and true until further researches and better conclu- 
sions eliminate the errors, leaving a residuum of real truth as a basis 
for further advance. The “subaérialists” and the “ submarinists ”’ 
(we know not, indeed, if there be any pure and simple followers of 
these schools) may, by their one-sided efforts, help to carry on 
observation and knowledge; and it seems as unavoidable that 
this should be the natural method of progress in geology as that 
by tacking and tacking the wind-stayed ship should make its weary 
way to port. We look, then, on Mr. Whitaker’s pamphlet, com- 
prising his réswmé of what has been done and his opinions of what 
ought to be thought, as an effort in the right direction; and we trust 
that, whether the ship’s prow be now too much to windward or the 
contrary, the voyage is successfully, though laboriously, progressing 
towards the happy land of geologists, where all the strata will be 
seen and all the fossils deciphered, where homotaxis and boulder- 
drift are unknown, where ice will do everything to please some, 
and water slave for others, where the voleano will give up the se- 
crets of its laboratory to solve the problems of the plutonist, and the 
hydrothermalist, no longer in hot water, will have his doubts re- 
moved. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
April 23, 1868.—Dr. William Allen Miller, Treasurer and 
Vice-President, in the Chair. 
“On the Geographical and Geological Relations of the Fauna and 
Flora of Palestine.” By the Rev. Henry Baker Tristram, M.A., 
F.G.S. 
A detailed examination of the fauna and flora exhibits results 
remarkably in accordance with the views expressed by Mr. Sclater 
and Dr. Giimther on the geographical distribution of species. Pa- 
lestine forms an extreme southern province of the Palearctic 
region. 
In every class, however, there are a group of peculiar forms, 
which cannot be explained simply by the fact of Palestine impinging 
closely on the Ethiopian, and more distantly on the Indian region, 
but which require a reference to the geological history of the 
country. 
_ The results of the examination of the collections made in 1864 
by the expedition assisted by the Royal Society, may be tabulated 
thus :— 
