490 Scientific Intelligence. 
mission, has attributed to a ah Seacee reduction in the rainfall of 
modern — consequent on a gradual change in the climate of 
Central Asi The eiiaene of lakes and the making the 
number few ee once there were many in Western Thibet and 
Turkestan is gon to the same general cause by Von Schla- 
intweit and the Geological Survey of India—“a progressive 
decrease of precipitation.” he same report is derived from other 
parts of Asia. Among many other similar accounts it is said of 
Arabia— it is a well established fact that the volume of flowing 
water is constantly diminishing ;” of the region bordering on the 
low er Euphrates and Tigris, once the most fruitful land of anti- 
some 3,000 square miles, formerly so rich in oases, which, thirty 
one eenturies ago, cou d. send into the field 135 000 swo ordsmen, is 
abandoned to a few hundreds of a mongrel Eg to-Bedawi race, 
half peasants, half nomads;” of Egypt, a similar history; of 
Greece, as Professor Unger repor ts—‘‘ instead of the former fruit- 
ful and well-watered meadows and peipies now only dry fields 
and bosky hills devoid of forests are to be found, cate in conse- 
quence of this, it is impossible that Greece should ever be again 
drawn within the circle of bic iccstl culture ;” and Picfesuok Fraas, 
recognizing the same cause s: ‘On the present soil of the 
Nile-land never again will any "philosophical syotemn be developed, 
tew only as examples 0 them are here cited. fact of gradual 
desiccation is further sustained by reports with regard to the 
Sahara region, Central Africa and South America 
In discussing causes for the desiccation in progress since the 
Cretaceous era, Protessor Whitney sets aside the idea of any 
of the diminished precipitation. Finally, he takes up the question 
—‘‘Has the solar radiation been diminishing | in ihe rie 
d f 
sun has been losing in Anois? power. In the third part of Pro- 
fessor Whitney’s important ei yet to be published, he will 
endeavor to show that “the ideas maintained are not in conflict 
with the phenomena of the so-called Glacial epoch.” 
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