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 Cijmha olla, — favoured by the 
current, cross through the Straits of Gibraltar over to the jS'orth 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 palaeontologist, 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 ^gean 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 tlie 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 
9S8ential characters of these beings remain unaltered ? Wherever these 
jjharacters undergo decided alterations, or the hitherto prevailing types are 
