12 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



These were probably used by families to make grits or 

 polenta. Strange to say this polenta is now made of Indian 

 corn (maize), which was introduced subsequently from 

 America. 



In one oven there were found many loaves of bread. The 

 bread is all quite black, carbonized. The loaves have the 

 form of a sailor-cap with radial furrows on the upper crust. 

 One small loaf in Naples and one in Pompeii show the stamp 

 of the baker. 



Of the leguminous plants in Pompeii there are the broad- 

 beans, Vicia Faba, vfhich are found very often. Next follow 

 the lentils. The broad-beans are not as large as those now 

 cultivated for food in Italy, being eaten raw or roasted when 

 they are half ripe. The old Pompeiian beans are very small, 

 resembling those which are fed in Europe to the horses and 

 pigeons. 



Perhaps the Ancients used them for the same purpose o'^ 

 may have sown them as they do now in Italy for green fer- 

 tilizer on heavy soil. It is also possible that they added the 

 flour of these small broad-beans to the wheat flour, as they 

 do now in France and Southwestern Germany, when wheat 

 dough will not raise. 



The seeds which I consider to be coriander have been taken 

 by others for hemp seed, but I fiud the form resembles more 

 the former. I should have liked to have investigated that 

 microscopically, but that must be done at leisure. It is very 

 difiicult to make sections of these brittle carbonized objects, 

 but I hope that the method which my assistant. Dr. Buch- 

 wald, and I found for examining prehistoric woods will also 

 apply to them. We have a very strange method. We burn 

 these black carbonized objects totally to white ashes. We 

 then throw the ashes into melted paraffin or add paraffin 

 directly and after this is solidified, we cut it like butter 



I will not speak here about the seeds found in the lake- 

 settlements or in the sepulchres of the ancient tribes in Ger- 

 many. They are nearly always the same, — wheat, barley, 

 often rye, more rarely oats and millet, small broad-beans, 

 hazelnuts, linseed, small apples and many seeds of wild plants. 



