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Third Meeting — November 18, 1850 ; 



J. B. YATES, Esq., in the Chair. 



The President exhibited some ears of wheat commonly 

 termed mummy wheat. In these specimens there appeared 

 eight or ten ears growing upon one stalk, thus fulfilling (as it 

 were) the conditions of Pharoah's dream in Genesis xli. 5. 

 They had been produced from some grains alleged to have 

 been taken six years before from a mummy in the Belfast 

 Museum. The President, however, expressed his conviction 

 that no well authenticated case could be brought forward of 

 wheat thus procured having ever germinated. He said that 

 the matter had been thoroughly investigated in the following 

 manner : — At a meeting of the Britisli Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, held at Glasgow in the year 1840, a 

 committee was appointed to institute a series of experiments, 

 with a view to determine the longest period during which the 

 seeds of plants can retain their vegetative power, and those 

 species which can longest retain that power. The committee 

 consisted of the four following gentlemen : Dr. Daubeny, 

 Mr. Strickland, Professor Henslow, and Professor Lindley. 

 These gentlemen took great pains to procure from various 

 quarters seeds known to have been gathered at remote periods; 

 and amongst other sources, they made application to the 

 trustees of the British Museum for permission to make ex- 

 periments on seeds obtained from the Egyptian catacombs. 

 Out of these there were taken one hundred seeds of wheat, 

 barley, and lentils respectively. These were carefully sown 

 in the spring of 1841, on a gentle hot-bed, principally in the 

 Botanic Garden at Oxford. From these not one plant was 



