The South Australian  22 January 1880

A French writer has published an interesting article on the subject, in which he maintains that there is every proof the climate of Europe has been, within comparatively recent time, becoming colder. In proof of this  Arago is quoted as remarking ‘that in his day the vine was not longer cultivated on the shores of the “Gulf of Bristol,” or in Flanders, or in Brittany; and that those countries which, according to old chronicles, once produced exquisite wines, no longer yielded ripe grapes, unless the season were exceptionally favourable. Then it is mentioned that, according to certain title deeds of properly going back to 1561, on the mountain slopes of the Vivarais, where now the vine crops of grapes used to be gathered at the height of 600 meters, no longer bear fruit. Again, in the neighborhood of Carcassonne, the cultivation of the olive has receded some fifteen or sixteen kilometers to the southward from the latitude to which it extended a hundred years ago. The sugarcane has disappeared from Provence, where it has been acclimatised. The orange trees of Hyeres, the cultivation of which extended in the sixteenth century as far as the village of Ouers, have been smitten with disease under a sky which is no longer favorable to their growth, and have had to be replaced by hardier fruit trees, such as peaches and almonds. In the Swiss Alps the ice line has invaded summits formerly covered with magnificent forests, of which the massive trunks and sturdy roots are still found in situ.

Iceland and Eastern Greenland have become much colder since the fourteenth century; for in the former large trees have ceased to grow, while on the opposite shores of the latter a great number of valleys, once inhabited, are now completely inaccessible, owing to the intrusion of glaciers.

22 Jan 1880 – SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS.