TRANSACTIONS. 333 



It is not many years since the following circumstance oc- 

 curred in Maine : — " Some well-diggers when sinking a well 

 at a distance of forty miles from the sea^ struck, at the 

 depth of about twenty feet, a layer of sand. This strongly 

 excited curiosity and interest, from the circumstance that 

 no similar sand was to be found any where in the neighbor- 

 hood, or any where nearer than the sea-beach. As it was 

 drawn up from the well it was placed in a pile by itself. 

 This pile was ultimately spread around the spot. In a year 

 or two it was perceived that a great number of small trees 

 had sprung up from the ground over which the sand had 

 been strewn. These trees were carefully preserved, and 

 proved to be beach plum trees, never before seen except 

 upon the sea-beach. They bore the beach plum. These 

 trees must therefore have sprung from seeds which had ex- 

 isted in the stratum of sea-sand pierced by the well-diggers. 

 How long they had been there it is impossible to cpujec- 

 ture. .And whether they had been cast up by some over- 

 flowing of the- sea at that place during some convulsion of 

 the elements, or whether the sea had receded from its 

 former shore by some upheaving of the land, it is equally 

 impossible to say. 



3d. Changes in the surface of the earth have been pro- 

 duced at comparatively recent geological periods, by the 

 focus of currents of water flowing in localities now entire- 

 ly removed from such actions. As for instance, there are 

 evidences that a current once flowed across this State from 

 the valley of the Connecticut to that of tlie Merrimack, 

 crossino- the hicrhlands at the Oramre summit. These cur- 

 rents then as now, would bear on them the plants and seeds 

 of plants from one section of the earth to another, as they 

 have moved solid rocks from the primitive beds and borne 

 them miles away. 



Of these various sources of seeds lying dormant in the 

 soil the first is undoubtedly the principal one. We cannot 

 by any other philosophical reason account for the so gener- 



