86 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



those cultivated in Southern Italy, whilst the millets were 

 similar to those cultivated in Egypt. 



In connection with the character of the vegetation under 

 notice, Professor Heer points out that it affords some clue to 

 the determination of the ae;e of the lake-dwellings, and by 

 means of this and other evidence hearing on the question, he 

 came to the conclusion that, whilst the most recent of those 

 dwellings, namely those of the Bronze period, might be not less 

 than 2,000 years old, the oldest might date back for thousands 

 of years before the commencement of the Christian era. He 

 also points out that those remains, which unquestionably have 

 a very high antiquity, throw some light on the solution of the 

 question whether the species of plants have undergone any 

 change in historic time. As regards the wild plants he answers 

 the question in the negative, (a conclusion concurred in by the 

 late Mr. Darwin, for reasons given in detail in his work here- 

 after referred to,) but finds that the case is different with the 

 cultivated plants, for that the greater number of those agree 

 with no recent forms sufficiently to allow of their being classed 

 together. He tells us that the small Celtic bean, the pea, the 

 small lake-dwelling barley, the Egyptian and the small lake- 

 dwelling wheat, and. the two-rowed wheat or emmer, form pecu- 

 liar and apparently extinct races, and he adds that man must, 

 therefore, in course of time, have produced sorts which gave 

 a more abundant yield, and have gradually supplanted the 

 old varieties. Mr. Darwin sums up the investigations of 

 Heer and others in passages which are to be found at pages 

 318 and 319 of the first volume of his great work on "Animals 

 and Plants under Domestication," a work which, by the way, 

 ought to be closely studied by every breeder of animals and 

 cultivator of the soil. 



From all this it will be seen that the great advance in 

 civilization exhibited by even the earlier Neolithic over the 

 latest Paleolithic inhabitants of Western Europe, may be 

 assigned chiefly to their possession of an abundant supply 

 of vegetable food, suitable, not only for man, but also for the 

 maintenance of domesticated animals, of which, as Professor 

 Kiitemeyer of Basle tells us, they possessed several species. 



I do not propose to deal with the long period which has inter- 

 vened between the occupation of the lake-dwellings and the pre- 

 sent time, which pertains entirely to the historic period, not only 

 because it would stretch this paper to an inconvenient length, 

 but because we shall be able more clearly and highly to appre- 

 ciate the advance made in the character of our vegetable food 

 during this interval, by a comparison of the inferior species 

 possessed by even the later inhabitants of the lake-dwellings, 

 with the rich produce now found in the cultivated fields and 

 gardens of Western Europe. This is vividly brought to our 



