496 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cates that they had ever lived in any other vicinity, or knew any 

 other materials than the bones and stones and shells of their own 

 valley and its encircling hills. Shut off from communication 

 almost as completely as if they had lived on an island, they seem 

 to have lived and died undisturbed from some great antiquity, if 

 we may judge from the height of the mound, which, as a debris 

 heap, could only have accumulated slowly. Who knows but that 

 here in the Santa Clara Valley is one of the seats where man first 

 invented a stone mill, first loved the glitter and shine of a lovely 

 shell, first raised his eyes and felt that he was different ! 



HOW PLANTS AND ANIMALS SPEND THE WINTER. 



By W. S. BLATCHLEY, 



STATE GEOLOGIST OF INDIANA. 



ONE of the greatest problems which each of the living forms 

 about us has had to solve during the years of its existence 

 on earth is how best to perpetuate its kind during that cold sea- 

 son which once each year, in our temperate zone, is bound to 

 come. Many are the solutions to this problem. Each form of 

 life has, as it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and 

 to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more interest- 

 ing than to pry into these solutions and note how varied, strange, 

 and wonderful they are. 



To fully appreciate some of the facts mentioned below it must 

 be borne in mind that there is no such thing as "spontaneous 

 generation" of life. Every cell is the offspring of a pre-existing 

 cell. Nothing but a living thing can produce a living thing. 

 Hence every weed that next season will spring up and provoke 

 the farmer's ire, and every insect which will then make life 

 almost intolerable for man or beast, exists throughout the winter 

 in some form. 



If we begin with some of the lowly plants, such as the fresh- 

 water algse, or so-called " frog- spittle" of the ponds, and many 

 of the rusts and fungi which are so injurious to crops, we find 

 that they form in autumn "resting spores." These are very 

 small and globular, one-celled bodies, having a much thicker 

 coat and denser protoplasm or contents than are found in the 

 spores often produced in summer by the same plants, and which 

 are destined for immediate growth. The power of life within 

 these winter resting spores is proof against the severest attacks 

 of frost, and they lie snugly ensconced in the mud at the bottom 

 of pond or stream, or buried beneath the leaves in some sheltered 

 nook, until the south winds of March or April furnish the key to 



