Flow visualization and temperature measurement were conducted to investigate the buoyancy induced longitudinal vortex how structure in a mixed convective air flow through a bottom heated horizontal plane channel for the Reynolds number ranging from 20 to 50 and Rayleigh number From 6000 io 30 000. The results suggested that at low buoyancy-to-inertia ratio a longitudinal roll pair with spanwise symmetry is first induced near the duct sides and more rolls are induced adjacent to the existing rolls as the flow moves downstream. Steady vortex flow prevails after the initial transient. At high buoyancy-to-inertia ratio the splitting and merging of the rolls take place frequently causing the flow to become unsteady and highly asymmetric at high Rayleigh numbers. Several types of the roll splitting processes were identified, namely, the splitting of one roll to three rolls and two rolls to four rolls, formation of two new rolls and two successive roll splittings of the above types. The reverse processes were noted during the roll merging. The data from the measured time histories of the air temperature indicated that the flow oscillation is position dependent with the oscillation amplitude being higher in the downstream core regions. Besides, the oscillation amplitude inside a roll is determined largely by the spanwise or axial position adjustment during the roll splitting and merging processes. Finally, the data for the onset of steady and unsteady vortex flows were empirically correlated.