ON THE SOURCES OF HEAT WHICH INFLUENCE CLIMATE. 
457 
benas, and others usually treated as greenhouse plants, survived the frost, some of 
them being scarcely affected by it. Flowering roots of Cyclamen Persicum were 
lost, but seedlings raised the preceding summer escaped. Old plants of the 
Pelargoniums and Mesembryanthemums survived, though young ones of the 
same species were killed. 
Thames Ditton , Surrey , 
July 18, 1838. 
ON THE SOURCES OF HEAT WHICH INFLUENCE CLIMATE.* 
By a Member of the Liverpool Natural History Society. 
My attention was first directed to the laws which govern the existing tem¬ 
perature on the surface of our globe, through a desire to know how far the recorded 
observations made at the greatest depth to which we have yet penetrated—all of 
which shew a greater or less increment of temperature as we descend—could be 
accounted for by known causes, before they are assigned to a source where some 
difficulties still demand explanation. 
In pursuing these inquiries, I have imperceptibly found myself in a much more 
extensive investigation than I at first contemplated, with the evidence often not 
a little perplexing; but as some of the points from which I have received the 
existing theories, referring to the central mass of our globe, suggest to me doubts 
as to the consistency of those theories with the observed phenomena, I have 
thought that it might not be unworthy of the attention of this Society to state 
where the difficulties occurred to me. My doing so is not from any desire to see 
shaken the conclusions of some of the most distinguished men of our day, but in 
the hope that its members, in discussing the subject, may be able to elucidate 
more correct views, and assist in the promotion of an inquiry to remove objections 
which have still to be met. 
Further, when it is remembered that the heat at the earth’s surface is a mean 
between two opposite extremes, it naturally becomes an object of interest to us 
to know on what basis the stability of the temperature allotted to the surface of 
this planet rests ; the more so since modern researches tend to prove that, before 
the historic era, our climates were much warmer than they now are; and also 
*We regret that the able author of this paper (read at the June meeting of the Liverpool 
Natural History Society) will not permit the ensuing pages to appear under the sanction of his 
name. This, however, by no means weakens the cogency of his arguments, which, we are requested 
to observe, he is willing to discuss, through the medium of The Naturalist , with any one who 
may question the justness of his positions.— Ed. 
