512 
was materially weakened. The present writer takes these circum- 
stances into account. He farther uses the information with which 
modern travellers have furnished us as to the physical and botanical 
geography of Palestine, including the data obtained from thermo- 
metric registers at Jerusalem and elsewhere; and he arrives at the 
following conclusions : — 
1. That judging from the known thermometric conditions of the 
growth and maturity of the date palm, compared with the evidences 
in Scripture of its distribution and culture in Ancient Palestine, the 
mean temperature of the site of Jerusalem, when reduced to the 
level of the sea, can have then differed but little from 70° Fahren- 
heit, which is its present value according to the best authorities. 
We conclude, with still more certainty, that the temperature could 
not, anciently, have been colder than this. 
2. That comparing the conditions which limit the cultivation of 
the vine, we find that as it certainly was not anciently less, but 
more general and advantageous than at present, the climate of 
Palestine could not have been materially hotter than now belongs 
to its geographical position, taking also into account the modifying 
influence of height above the sea. 
3. That this argument is enhanced by the evidence from hiero- 
glyphics, and also from Scripture, that the cultivation of the grape 
was anciently more extensive in Egypt than it now is. That while 
this might seem to point to the conclusion that these countries are 
hotter now than formerly, the difference is sufficiently accounted for 
by political circumstances, and the conclusion is itself negatived by 
the evidence to the contrary derived from the date palm. 
4. Hence the climate of Palestine, being neither sensibly hotter 
nor colder than it anciently was, is of course unchanged ; and the 
direct evidence of modern travellers on the distribution of the vine 
and palm in that country leads to the same result. 
2. Biographical Notice of Andrew Dalzel, Professor of Greek 
in the University of Edinburgh. By Professor Innes. 
Professor Dalzel was born in 1742, at Gateside of Newliston. 
His father died while he was still an infant, and he was educated 
partly by his uncle, the minister of Stonykirk, in Galloway, and 
after his death, by his mother, at Newliston. He attended the 
