272 REVIEWS. 



these chapters, yet without advising the reader to follow the 

 example, unless he is already familiar with the topic — now a 

 little threadbare — for, as a popular presentation, it is neat 

 and sensible, though not profound. It hardly need be said 

 that Saporta is an evolutionist, using the term in its general 

 sense, and apparently a thorough Darwinian. A vegetable 

 palaeontologist who studies the later geological deposits cannot 

 be otherwise ; at least, he must needs be a " transformist." 

 Saporta concludes that palaeontology, if it does not furnish 

 demonstration, yet gives irresistible reasons for a belief in 

 evolution. The ground and the nature of this conviction 

 appear in his rounded statement, that there is not a tree or 

 shrub in Europe, in North America, at the Canaries, in the 

 Mediterranean region, the ancestry of which is not recogniz- 

 able, more or less distinctly, in a fossil state. This is too 

 absolutely stated, no doubt, but the qualifications it may need 

 will not invalidate the conclusion. 



The chapter on ancient climates which follows, and forms 

 a proper introduction to the second part of the book, is worthy 

 of particular attention. It is prefaced by an elementary but 

 very graphic exposition of the j^henomena and laws of climates 

 and their diversities, from the regular succession of equal days 

 and nights under the equator to the contrasted condition 

 toward the pole of a year composed of a day and a night sea- 

 son, separated by a season of twilight ; the change so rapid in 

 the high latitudes that, while the summer day at the North 

 Cape is two months long, at Spitzbergen seven additional 

 degrees of latitude lengthen it to four months. Let the 

 author point the contrast between the two extremes, as affect- 

 ing man, in his own language, here somewhat exceptionally 

 ornate : — 



" II est vrai que dans ce dernier pays [Spitzbergen] le soleil s'^- 

 leve au plus de 37 degrds au-dessus de I'horizon ; il n'envoie que 

 des rayons sans chaleur, telum imhelle sine ictu / il eclaire de sa 

 lueur pale une terre glac^e oil frissonnent quelques plantes enseve- 

 lies sous les frimas, et qui ne sortent du sommeil qui les tient dix 

 mois inertes que pour aceomplir hativement leurs fonctlons vitales 

 et se rendormir de nouveau. Quel tableau, si Ton songe aux forSts 



