48o 



NA TURE 



[September ii, 1890 



Still, there is no cause for despair— far from it ; if our 

 difficulties are increasing, so also are our means of grappling 

 with them ; if the goal appears harder to reach than we thought 

 for, on the other hand its position is far better defined, and the 

 means of approach, the lines of attack, are more clearly re- 

 cognized. 



One thing above all is apparent, that embryologists must not 

 work single-handed, and nmst not be satisfied with an acquaint- 

 ance, however exact, with animals from the side of development 

 only ; for embryos have this in common with maps, that too 

 close and too exclusive a study of them is apt to disturb a man's 

 reasoning power. 



Embryology is a means, not an end. Our ambition is to 

 explain in what manner and by what stages the present structure 

 of animals has been attained. Towards this embryology affords 

 most potent aid ; but the eloquent protest of the great anatomist 

 of Heidelberg must be laid to heart, and it must not be forgotten 

 that it is through comparative anatomy that its power to help is 

 derived. 



"What would it profit us, as Gegenbaur justly asks, to know 

 that the higher vertebrates when embryos have slits in their 

 throats, unless through comparative anatomy we were acquainted 

 with forms now existing in which these slits are structures 

 essential to existence ? Anatomy defines the goal, tells us of the 

 things that have to be explained ; em.bryology offers a means, 

 otherwise denied to us, of attaining it. 



Comparative anatomy and palaeontology must be studied most 

 earnestly by those who would turn the lessons of embryology to 

 best account, and it must never be forgotten that it is to men 

 like Johannes Miiller, Stannius, Cuvier, and John Hunter, the 

 men to whom our exact knowledge of comparative anatomy is 

 due, that we owe also the possibility of a science of embryology. 



SECTION E, 

 geography. 



Opening Address by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir R. 

 Lambert Playfair, K.C.M.G., H.M. Consul- 

 General in Algeria, President of the Section. 



The Mediterranean, Physical and Historical. 



When the unexpected honour was proposed to me of pre- 

 siding over your deliberations, I felt some embarrassment as to 

 the subject of my address. Geography as a science and the 

 necessity of encouraging a more systematic study of it, had 

 been treated in an exhaustive manner durin;; previous meetings. 

 The splendid discoveries of Stanley and the prolonged ex- 

 periences of Emin have been amply illustrated by the personal 

 narrative of the former. The progress of geography during the 

 past year has been fully detailed in the annual address of the 

 President of the Royal Geographical Society in June last ; so 

 that it would be a vain and presumptuous endeavour for me to 

 compress these subjects into the limits of an opening address. 

 Closely connected with them are the magnificent experiments for 

 opening out Africa which are being made by our merchant 

 princes, amongst whom the name of Sir William Mackinnon 

 stands pre-eminent, and by our missionary societies of various 

 churches, all acting cordially in unison, and sinking, in the dark 

 continent, the differences and heartburnings which divide 

 Christianity at home ; I have thought it better, however, not to 

 discuss matters so closely connected with political questions 

 which have not yet passed into the realm of history. 



In my perplexity I applied for the advice of one of the most 

 experienced geographers of our Society, whose reply brought 

 comfort to my mind. He reminded me that it was generally the 

 custom for Presidents of Sections to select subjects with which 

 they were best acquainted, and added : "What more instruc- 

 tive and captivating subject could be wished than The Medi- 

 terranean, Physical and Historical ? " 



For nearly a quarter of a century I have held an official 

 position in Algeria, and it has been my constant delight to make 

 myself acquainted with the islands and shores of the Medi- 

 terranean, in the hope of being able to facilitate the travels of 

 my countrymen in that beautiful part of the world. 



I cannot pretend to throw much new light on the subject, and 

 I have written so often about it already that what I have to say 

 may strike you as a twice-told tale : nevertheless, if you will 

 permit me to descend from the elevated platform occupied by 

 more learned predecessors, I should like to speak to you in a 



NO. 1089, VOL. 42] 



familiar manner of this " great sea," as it is called in sacred 

 Scripture, the Mare Internum of the ancients, " our sea, " 71/ar^ 

 nostrtim of Pomponius Mela. 



Its shores include about three million square miles of the 

 richest country on the earth's surface, enjoying a climate where 

 the extremes of temperature are unknown, and with every 

 variety of scenery, but chiefly consisting of mountains and 

 elevated plateaux. It is a well-defined region of many parts, all 

 intimately connected with each other by their geographical 

 character, their geological formation, their flora, fauna, and the 

 physiognomy of the people who inhabit them. To this general 

 statement there are two exceptions — namely, Palestine, which 

 belongs rather to the tropical countries lying to the east of it, 

 and so may be dismissed from our subject ; and the Sahara, which 

 stretches to the south of the Atlantic region— or region of the 

 Atlas— but approaches the sea at the Syrtis, and again to the 

 eastward of the Cyrenaica, and in which Egypt is merely a long 

 oasis on either side of the Nile. 



The Mediterranean region is the emblem of fertility and the 

 cradle of civilization, while the Sahara — Egypt, of course, 

 excepted — is the traditional panther's skin of sand, dotted here 

 and there with oases, but always representing sterility and bar- 

 barism. The sea is in no sense, save a political one, the limit 

 between them ; it is a mere gulf, which, now bridged by steam, 

 rather unites than separates the two shores. Civilization never 

 could have existed if this inland sea had not formed thejunction 

 between the three surrounding continents, rendering the coasts 

 of each easily accessible, whilst modifying the climate of its 

 shores. 



The Atlas range is a mere continuation of the south of 

 Europe. It is a long strip of mountain land, about 200 miles 

 broad, covered with splendid forests, fertile valleys, and in some 

 places arid steppes, stretching eastward from the ocean to which 

 it has given its name. The highest point is in Morocco, forming 

 a pendant to the Sierra Nevada of Spain ; thence it runs, 

 gradually decreasing in height, through Algeria and Tunisia, it 

 becomes interrupted in Tripoli, and it ends in the beautiful 

 green hills of the Cyrenaica, which must not be confounded 

 with the oases of the Sahara, but is an island detached from the 

 eastern spurs of the Atlas, in the ocean of the desert. 



In the eastern part the flora and fauna do not essentially differ 

 from those of Italy ; in the west they resemble those of Spain ; 

 one of the noblest of the Atlantic conifers, the Abies pinsapo, 

 is found also in the Iberian peninsula and nowhere else in the 

 world, and the valuable alfa grass or esparto {Stipa ienacissima), 

 from which a great part of our paper is now made, forms one of 

 the principal articles of export from Spain, Portugal, Morocco, 

 Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli. On both sides of the sea the 

 former plant is found on the highest and most inaccessible 

 mountains, amongst snows which last during the greater part of 

 the year, and the latter from the sea-level to an altitude of 

 5000 feet, but in places where the heat and drought would 

 kill any other plant, and in undulating land where water cannot 

 lodge. 



Of the 3000 plants found in Algeria by far the greater num- 

 ber are natives of Southern Europe, and less than 100 are 

 peculiar to the Sahara. The macchie or maquis of Algeria in 

 no way differs from that of Corsica, Sardinia, and other places j 

 it consists of lentisk, arbutus, myrtle, cistus, tree-heath, and 

 other Mediterranean shrubs. If we take the commonest plant 

 found on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, the dwarf 

 palm {Chanimrops humilis), we see at once how intimately con- 

 nected is the whole Mediterranean region, with the exception of 

 the localities I have before indicated. This palm still grows 

 spontaneously in the south of Spain, and in some parts of 

 Provence, in Corsica, Sardinia, and the Tuscan Archipelago, in 

 Calabria and the Ionian Islands, on the continent of Greece, 

 and in several of the islands in the Levant, and it has only dis- 

 appeared from other countries as the land has been brought 

 under regular cultivation. On the other hand, it occurs neither 

 in Palestine, Egypt, nor in the Sahara. 



The presence of European birds may not prove much, but 

 there are mammalia, fish, reptiles, and insects common to both 

 sides of the Mediterranean. Some of the larger animals, such 

 as the lion, panther, jackal, &c., have disappeared before the 

 march of civilization in the one continent, but have lingered, 

 owing to Mohammedan barbarism, in the other. There i& 

 abundant evidence of the former existence of these, and of the 

 other large mammals which now characterize tropical Africa,, 

 in France, Germany, and Greece ; it is probable that they onlv 



