366 REPORT— 1882. 



To those remarks on the different physical changes nnderpfone by the 

 Sahara-Lybian desert and the Mediterranean regions during the latest 

 geological periods, and even historical times, I may add a few worda 

 about some botanical modifications, which probably took place after the 

 formation of the Mediterranean Sea, considered by several naturalists as 

 comparatively recent. The fact is, that the two shores of this Sea 

 present a great difference in the amount and the distribution of certain 

 vegetable families, a difference which climatic conditions are not sufficient 

 to explain. Among those vegetable families I will quote only the 

 CupuUfercB and the ConifercB. In the first, the genus Quermis, or oak, is 

 particularly conspicuous on that account. In geological aspect the oak 

 may be considered as of recent origin, for among the thirty-four species 

 admitted by Count Saporta, all, with the exception of one only (^Quercus 

 primordialis), appear, for the first time, as late as in the more recent 

 tertiary formations (miocene and pliocene). Now, Algeria has hardly 

 nine species of oak, but Spain, sixteen species ; France, twelve ; Greece, 

 probably more than fifteen; whereas Asia Minor, where the genus 

 seems to have acquired its maximum of development, has fifty-two 

 species, of which twenty-six are peculiar to the Anatolian peninsula.' 



As for the family of Coniferce, the cedar presents a striking example 

 of localisation, for, on the whole Mediterranean coast-line, there are only 

 four points where this beautiful tree grows truly wild, viz., the Lebanon 

 (Syria), Algeria, Cilicia (southern Asia Minor), and Cyprus ; the exist-, 

 ence of the cedar in that last island having been recently ascertained by 

 Sir Samuel Baker. The Lebanon had been considered as the cradle of 

 the cedar, before North Africa was known to contain large forests of a 

 variety of that species (Cedrus Lihani, var. atlantica), but the Austrian 

 botanist Kotschy and I were so fortunate as to discover in Cilicia a 

 new locality for this fine tree, much more important than any known 

 previously, as I believe to have proved,^ when comparing the Algerian 

 cedar forests with the Anatolian, so that if these last had been known 

 when the botanist Loudon established the new species of cedar, he would 

 have called it Cedrus Gilicice instead of Cedrus lAhani. 



The two instances of curious localisation, which I have just alluded 

 to, are sufficient to prove that such phenomena took place after the for- 

 mation of the Mediterranean Sea ; for had the cedar been spread out on 

 the continent which once united Europe to Africa, this tree must have 

 remained, after the separation of the two continents, on many points of 

 the northern shores of the Mediterranean, as, for instance, on the moun- 

 tains of Greece, on the Apennines, the Pyrenees, &c., where the con- 

 ditions of climate and soil are as favourable to the cedar as they are 

 in North Africa, Asia Minor, or on the Lebanon ; whereas, if we admit 

 that the cedar appeared on its present stations after the formation of the 

 Mediterranean, the impediments opposed by the sea to the diffusion of 

 the tree on both sides of the Mediterranean account sufficiently for its 

 localisation. 



A similar reasoning may be applied to the absence of monkeys on 

 the northern shores of the Mediterranean, and their abundance on the 

 southern. It is known that the only point in Europe inhabited by wild 

 monkeys is the rock of Gibraltar ; still they are there by no means in- 

 digenous, but most probably have been imported by the Arabs during 



• Tchihatchef, Ade Mineure, partie hotanique, vol, ii. pp. 463-480. 

 ' E*]}agne, Algcrie et Tunitie, p. 78. 



