1869.] 



President's Address. 



107 



Invertebrata may have a far wider extension on the surface of the globe 

 than is the case with the inhabiters of the land. The correctness of this 

 inference received the fullest confirmation by the researches of the late 

 Admiral Sir James Clark Ross, whose dredges brought up from the 

 depths of the Antarctic Ocean individuals of species which were well 

 known to him from his earlier dredging operations in the Arctic seas. 

 These animals are known to be particularly sensitive in regard to tempe- 

 rature ; and we have no reason to doubt his conclusion, that water of 

 similar temperature to that of the Arctic and Antarctic seas exists in the 

 depths of the intermediate ocean, and may have formed a channel for the 

 dissemination of species. The barrier which the heated regions of the 

 tropics present to the migrations of the land animals of colder climates 

 does not exist in the case of many of those inhabitants of the sea whose 

 remains constitute a large portion of the fossiliferous strata of the globe. 



The Fellows will not have forgotten the important paper on the Flora of 

 North Greenland by Prof. Oswald Heer, which was read last winter, and 

 which will speedily be in their hands in the forthcoming volume of the 

 Transactions. The inquiries carried on by this eminent botanist have 

 determined, beyond the possibility of cavil, the climatological conditions of 

 the Arctic regions at a geological epoch which is comparatively recent (the 

 Miocene), and have shown that they must have resembled very closely 

 thos? now prevailing in latitudes at least 20° lower ; for such is the zone 

 inhabited by the living representatives of the plants found fossil by him in 

 the localities in which they grew. 



The specimens brought by the recent Swedish Expedition from Spitz- 

 bergen have also been submitted to his examination ; and it appears that a 

 portion of these, from Advent Bay, belong to the Quaternary Epoch. It 

 will therefore be a matter of no small interest to determine accurately the 

 changes of climate which took place in that locality at the expiration of the 

 Miocene era. 



I proceed to the award of the Medals. 



The Copley Medal has been awarded to M. Victor Reguault, Foreign 

 Member of the Royal Society, for the second volume of his ' Relation des 

 Experiences pour determiner les lois et les donnees physiques ne'cessaires 

 au calcul des Machines a Feu,' including his elaborate investigations on 

 the Specific Heat of Gases and Vapours, and various papers on the Elastic 

 Force of Vapours. 



The name of M. Victor Regnault has been associated for the last quarter 

 of a century with the most refined and delicate experimental inquiries con- 

 nected with the measurement of heat. The amount of labour involved in 

 his researches upon the specific heat of simple and compound bodies, upon 

 the dilatation of gases and vapours, upon the comparison of the air-thermo- 



