536 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 162. 



worn down to the gums. I am sure I am not mis- 

 taking these circumstances, for they afterwards formed 

 the subject of much thought, in which I at length drew 

 a conclusion, which might have been too hasty a one, 

 that the only appearance of caries in the teeth of civi- 

 lised tribes, and especially of our own race — the Teu- 

 tonic — was owing to high feeding, if not flesh eating, 

 and therefore I rejected flesh food through an interval 

 of many years. Mr. Maclean told me he had sent 

 some of this seedy half-coprolite substance to some 

 botanist — I believe. Dr. Lindley : and at another time 

 he showed me, as it seemed, with much pleasure and 

 pride, a spray of a raspberry plant, which he said had 

 sprung from one of the seeds of the seedy substance 

 which he had shown me as the contents of the colon of 

 an ancient Briton ; and that the sprig had come to him 

 from the gentleman to whom he had sent the seeds, 

 and under whose care they had germinated. And, 

 lastly, I once called upon him, and found in his room 

 two or three of the labourers who had opened, under 

 his own eyes, the barrow in which the seeds were 

 found; and he told me they had just signed a declara- 

 tion of their knowledge of their finding of the seedy 

 substance in the barrow, and, as I believe, though I 

 did not hear the declaration, of its manner and form, 

 and relative place. 1 fully trust in Mr. Maclean's 

 good faith through the whole of the transaction, and 

 know, or believe most confidently, that he opened a 

 barrow near this town, and that he found in it the 

 seedy substance which he showed as what he thought 

 the contents of the colon of a Briton who was buried 

 in the barrow ; that he sent some of it to some gentle- 

 man in or near London ; that he afterwards received 

 from him a twig of a raspberry plant, which he was 

 told, and believed, had grown from the seed of it. Mr. 

 Maclean is now dead. The Gardeners' Chronicle makes 

 Mr. Maclean to have said, ' He found a coffin in his 

 barrow.' I never heard that he found anything like 

 what we call a coffin, though he might or might not 

 have found a kist-vcen in it ; and might have called a 

 kist-vcen a stone coffin. There is not, I believe, any 

 reason to believe that any of the Ilidgeway barrows 

 are the graves of a later tribe than the ancient Britons 

 or Belg£e. I am, &c. 



"21st Aug. 1852. William Barnes." 



In addition to the above, I beg to add that of 

 another friend, Jas.Froud, Esq., also of Dorchester, 

 in whose house Mr. Maclean lodged for some time. 

 Mr. Froud says : 



" It is with pleasure I bear testimony to the follow- 

 ing ; Mr. Maclean, who has been dead now some years, 

 was a man of great natural talent, persevering industry, 

 a good botanist, and as a dentist stood high with the 

 profession and the public generally. The devotion with 

 which he pursued his profession, induced him on every 

 possible occasion to bean eye-witness at the opening of 

 any of the barrows in the vicinity of Dorchester, hoping 

 thereby to procure specimens of human teeth, which 

 might confirm his previously formed opinion that the 

 Creator intended that those important parts of the 

 human frame should survive every other; and that 

 unless interfered with, either by taking deleterious 



medicines, or the use of acids as articles of diet, or 

 tooth powder, teeth may wear, but would 7iever decay. 

 It was, then, as a useful member of his profession, that 

 he was led to witness the opening of barrows. And it 

 was the accidental finding of something resembling^ 

 seeds that excited his botanical propensities, and induced 

 him to preserve for future investigation the mass in 

 which the seeds were imbedded. I was not present at 

 the opening of the barrow, but I have a most distinct 

 recollection of Mr. Maclean bringing home and showing 

 me the teeth, and a mass of something containing what 

 he then thought to be seeds of fruit eaten by the person 

 shortly before death. He then told me that he should 

 either send or take to London the mass he had found, and 

 leave it with some parties who in all probability would 

 be able ultimately to determine the character of its 

 contents, and this I know he did ; but from that time 

 to the present, I had lost sight of the subject altogether: 

 for Mr. M., who had been with me for three or four 

 years, soon after left my house for a more central part 

 of the town. 



" Dorchester, August 28th, 1851. Jas, Froud." 

 To what I have already advanced on this inte- 

 resting but disputed subject, I will make a few 

 quotations from a letter published in the Gar- 

 deners'' Chronicle from Dr. Smith, M.D., Wey- 

 mouth, whose letter is doubly interesting, he 

 having been an intimate friend of Mr. Maclean, 

 and in possession, I believe, of Mr. M.'s papers 

 through Mrs. Maclean. Dr. Smith says : 



" I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Blaclean inti- 

 mately for a period of four years before his death ; I 

 attended him professionally during that period ; and I 

 am not saying too much for departed worth, when I 

 express my firm belief that he was a man perfectly firee 

 from guile or deceit : in fact, that no two meanings or 

 false pretences ever attached to any assertion he made. 

 I have often conversed with him on the subject of the 

 fossil seeds in question, and have walked with him over 

 the very spot, where he told me he had found them at 

 the depth of thirty feet. I recollect his remarks at the 

 time, as perfectly as if they had only been spoken 

 yesterday : ' In this barrow. Doctor, I found the seeds 

 I told you of, and from which were reared the rasp- 

 berry plants I have showed you the two dried speci- 

 mens of; and yet Dr. Lindley, to whom I gave the 

 seeds from which those plants were raised, has never 

 thought it worth his while to mention my name, or me 

 as the discoverer !' " 



For the truth of this assertion I beg to refer the 

 readers of " N. & Q." to Lindley's Introduction on 

 Botany, published in 1835, where the first notice 

 of these seeds appears to the public. Dr. Smith 

 again says : 



" I have seen a letter from Dr. Lindley, dated 183C, 

 on this subject to Mr. JMaclean, and a copy of the 

 letter of the latter in reply, together with a copy of a 

 certificate of the labourers employed by Mr. Maclean^ 

 in proof of the fact." 



Which facts may be thus briefly and simply 

 stated : that Mr. Maclean did open a barrow near 



