PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
vol. iv. 1861-62. No. 57. 
Monday , 6th January 1862. 
The Hon. LORD NEAVES, V.P., in the Chair. 
An address of condolence to Her Majesty, on account of the death 
of his Royal Highness the Prince Consort, was adopted by the 
Society ; and the Secretary was directed to transmit it, after receiv- 
ing the signature of the President, to Sir George Grey, Principal 
Secretary of State for the Home Department. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On the Climate of Palestine in Modern compared to 
Ancient Times. By Principal Forbes. 
In this paper the writer proposes to revise and extend the argu- 
ment used thirty years ago by the late Professor Schouw of Copen- 
hagen, as to the climate of Palestine, founded on the coincident 
cultivation of the Date Palm, and the Vine : the one plant nearly 
ceasing to bring its fruit to maturity when the other begins to be 
productive. Tropical heat is as necessary to the maturity of the 
date as it is injurious to the manufacture of wine. 
In Schouw’s ingenious paper (Edinburgh Journal of Science 
for 1828), by a strange oversight, the great range of temperature 
of Judsea and of Palestine generally, due to the mountainous 
nature of the country, and to the anomalous depression of the 
valley of the Jordan,* was left out of account; and hence the force 
of the argument for the uniformity of ancient and modern climates 
* The latter fact was in 1828 imperfectly ascertained. 
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