annivehsary address of the president. Ixi 



American rather than an African origin ; and the heavy storm of 

 28th February, 1866, was a south-westerly gale in Western Europe, 

 a Ftihn in the Alps, and a Scirocco in Italy, accompanied by rain 

 with red dust. It is true that these atmospheric currents may be 

 subjected to such obstruction or friction by coming in contact on 

 the north-west with masses of cold air, and on the south-east with 

 the heated air of Africa, as to be obliged to pursue a modified 

 course, and that in this way, a Scirocco di paese, a real land-Fohn 

 may be locally occasioned. Under such conditions the line of Italy 

 and the Alps would form a border region, while the greatest baro- 

 metrical depression would occur, not in Switzerland, but in France, 

 and would, as in the storm of 23rd September, 1866, cause the 

 equatorial current to act with special energy in that country, and 

 thus to produce the most destructive inundations. 



Professor Dove seems to admit that an occasional hot blast may 

 cross as a direct desert- wind in the lower regions of the atmosphere, 

 by the narrow sea- channel from Tunis to Sicily, and, sweeping up 

 overland, perhaps reach the Alps as a still dry wind. But the 

 lively account given by Lorenz* of the ways and properties of the 

 two opponents, the Scirocco and the Bora, on the eastern coast of 

 the Adriatic, adds strong confirmation to the general statement that, 

 apart from local waifs and strays and modifications in direction, the 

 great bulk of the winds which descend hot and full of moisture on 

 these mountain-regions has ascended from land and ocean far to 

 the west of Africa, and that they are fulfilling the great purpose 

 of counteracting the tendency of the trade-winds, as they drag 

 over the surface of the earth, to retard the velocity of its diurnal 

 rotation. 



A great amount of clear light has been thrown upon the climatal 

 conditions of our globe in various earlier stages of its history by the 

 researches of Prof. Oswald Heerf, who has recently published a brief 

 resume on the fossilized remains of plants found in Iceland, Spitz- 

 bergen, ^N'orth Greenland, Banks Land, and the north of Canada. 

 At the outset we are astonished at the wealth of the Arctic flora 

 proved to have existed in Miocene times ; but when the indefatigable 

 Swiss botanist shows us so many instances of close analogy between 

 the extinct forms and the now living species of northern latitudes, 

 he dissipates the doubts which induced cautious reasoners to argue 

 for the probability of masses of trees and qther vegetation having 

 been drifted from the southward to the now inhospitable shores 

 where they have been exhumed by our Polar explorers. The pre- 

 servation of delicate leaves, the fact that insects are found with the 

 plants, the presence of fruits, flowers, and seeds, sometimes arranged 

 as they originally were in the berry, and the occurrence of the 

 vegetable remains in some cases (as in Spitzbergen) with fresh- 



* Physikalische Verhaltnisse und Vertheilung der Organismen im quar- 

 nerisclien G-olf. 1863. 



+ " La Flore Miocene des regions polaires," par M. le Professeur O. Heer, 

 Bibl. Univ. Nov. 1867. See also ' Flore Fossile des Kegions Polaires,' par M. 

 le Prof. O. Heer : Ziirich, 1867. 



