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should have rested there until we had both an opportunity of joining in friendly 

 discussion again ; but instead of that, proceedings are taken in my absence ; 

 the discussion, according to the Bridgnorth system, is all " on one side," and 

 then a shout of victory is raised, that they " quite demolished Mr. Lee's theory." 

 To proceed to actual demolition in my absence was rather too bad, and even had 

 I been present, it would have been cruel to take all the wind out of me ! When 

 Mr. Flavell Edmunds and Dr. Bull, dissatisfied with the Tarrington skirmish, 

 had resolved to give me a regular baiting, they should have considered that to 

 impale me efifectually on the horns of any prepared dUemma, it was necessary, 

 and indeed only fair, to have me personally before the pack to show sport. As 

 it is, they have only battered " the shell of Anaxarchus," and I shall be prepared 

 to show as much vitality yet as any of their " buried seeds," though the winds 

 may seem laid for the present. 



In truth, I believe that I can dispose of most of the facts brought forward 

 by Mr. Edmunds and his friends, without the necessity of taking the hypothesis 

 (for there is no proof adduced) that the seeds that produced the plants in question 

 had been buried for any enormous length of time. But I have no desire to be 

 dogmatical, and beg to remark that I value every fact that can be brought 

 forward on undoubted evidence, merely differing from my friends of the Woolhope 

 Club on the explanation of the facts. I object to the term " ventose theory," 

 given by Mr. Edmunds to my views, because I only bring forward the agency 

 of the wind as a means of transport, in explanation of particular facts. The 

 general aid given by the wind to disperse the seeds of plants is undeniable, as 

 numerous walls, rocky escarpments, and waste places show every day. It is to 

 be remarked that the seeds of plants in the cases mentioned are not really found, 

 but only plants appear, presumed to have arisen from buried seeds, deposited a 

 long time ago. Now, with our present knowledge, certainly being absent, when 

 on fresh turned-up soil plants appear new to the vicinity (for that point seems 

 to be relied on), which is the most reasonable supposition, that the wind has 

 carried the seeds there from some place where the plants are now or were growing, 

 or to presume an entombment of the seeds for centuries beneath the soil ? No 

 unknown plant has ever been thus brought to light, and as yet nothing is certainly 

 known as to how long seeds could remain buried uninjured. Mr. Darwin has 

 commenced experiments on the subject, but they are as yet incomplete ; and 

 reverting to first principles, let us, like good Mrs. Glasse, with her hare in the 

 cookery book, first " catch " the seeds themselves buried in the soil, before 

 presuming they are there. The mummy wheat tale, reiterated over and over 

 again, has never yet been properly authenticated ; and unless the experimentalist 

 himself took earth at a measured distance underground, and from mines where 

 no horse or hay had ever had access, strong suspicion attaches to common plants 

 rising up from such a source. Cultivated plants, such as flax, rape, and agrarian 

 weeds, are ever coming up in strange places where casually dropped, and soon 

 again disappear ; and I have myself seen dead plants of henbane, with abundance 

 of capsules and seeds, blown about on a windy day in Autumn, while it is quite 

 impossible to say where they grew originally. The seeds would doubtless be 

 wafted into all sorts of queer places, and vegetate where they could. The case 



