FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 



303 



extinct probably at the time of the diluvium, and never since have been 

 able to recover their place. It is true, as Mr. M'Andrew teaches us, that 

 many tropical species, — as, for instance, the Cymba olla, — favoured by the 

 current, cross through the Straits of Gibraltar over to the North African 

 coasts ; but they do not penetrate far enough, and besides, the character 

 of the Mediterranean fauna is quite different from that of Senegambia. 



Climatal variations are generally considered the essential causes of all 

 such displacings of land and sea faunas and floras ; and many distinguished 

 naturalists, influenced by the great effects they have witnessed of the 

 south wind on the glaciers in Switzerland, have been induced to attribute 

 to it the melting away of the formerly larger extents of those ice-masses. 

 Thus, also, they have arrived at the same result which, as we have seen, 

 has been attained by the paleontologist, the geologist, and the animal geo- 

 grapher, each following different roads, namely the conclusion that the 

 Sahara, the source of the south wind, was once covered with water. On 

 the heights of continental Europe a stronger climate might probably have 

 been produced ; but in a continent dissolved into an archipelago, as we 

 can imagine it to have been at the time when the present Senegambian 

 shell-fish lived near Vienna, a lower temperature, at least in the sea, could 

 certainly not have been produced, and the whole archipelago enjoyed un- 

 doubtedly, notwithstanding the want of a south wind, a moderate sea- 

 climate. 



Many questions and many doubts still force themselves on our mind ; 

 but at all events we can at least already foresee the way to study through 

 the creations of the present those of the past, and through which we may 

 arrive at a more perfect understanding of the repeated changes of the 

 organic world. 



The Count Marschall of Vienna has kindly sent us the following excel- 

 lent notice of Dr. James E. Lorenz's admirable and valuable work on the 

 ' Physical Condition of the Gulf of Quarnero, and the Distribution of the 

 Organic Beings living in its Waters : ' — 



This book, published at the cost of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 

 is based on the results of six years of assiduous local observations made 

 by the author, who holds an eminent place amongst the younger genera- 

 tion of Austrian naturalists. The title in itself shows these investigations 

 to stand in close relation with those made by Oersted on the Oeresund 

 and by the late Edward Forbes on the ^ftgean and the German seas, es- 

 pecially concerning the distribution of submarine organisms (both plants 

 and animals) within certain regions of depth and the influence of physical 

 conditions on their modes of existence ; while Sars, Asbjornsen, and 

 M'Andrew have merely brought under consideration the mode of distri- 

 bution of marine animals, without a special regard for the physical condi- 

 tions under the influence of which they exist. Dr. Lorenz's book, how- 

 ever, is in certain points of view essentially different from those by Oersted 

 and Forbes. The physical conditions of the Gulf of Quarnero, which 

 covers a surface of about one geographical degree square, are treated in 

 detail in the first section of the book, which may, in itself, be regarded as 

 a complete hydrography of this portion of the Adriatic. Such a thorough 

 investigation of these conditions may be considered a real progress, to 

 be expected from the rational use of a sequential method. What, after 

 all, are the regions and zones to be distinguished in the horizontal and 

 vertical distribution of organic beings but spaces, within whose limits the 

 essential characters of these beings remain unaltered ? Wherever these 

 characters undergo decided alterations, or the hitherto prevailing types are 



