Royal Society, 63 



Scientific knowledge is arrived at by repeated efforts, with imper- 

 fect observation and half-trne 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 " subaerialists " 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 imavoidable 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 resume 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 volcano 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. 



PEOCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



April 23, 1868.— Dr. William Allen Miller, Treasurer and 

 Yice- 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. Giinther on the geographical distribution of species. Pa- 

 lestine forms an extreme southern province of the Paleearctic 

 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 : — 



