120 THE LIFE OF A TREE. 
to be found! Not so much as a single stalk of 
hay was left, and he had to mourn over his loss 
without being able to get the least clue to the 
perpetrators of the damage. Thus matters re- 
mained for a time. 
At length, greatly to the relief of the per- 
plexed philosophers, and infinitely to the asto- 
nishment of the bereaved farmer, the nature of 
the shining molten mass was found out. M. 
Gmelin, the chemist, after several experiments, 
found it to consist not of iron or such matters, 
like “‘ meteoric stones,” but of a substance which 
forms the outer coat of grass and hay, and may be 
called a sort of compound of sand and potash. 
Now all was cleared up in an instant :—a flash of 
lightning had struck the farmer’s stack of hay, 
consuming it in a moment, and leaving only the 
black melted mass, consisting of the salts and the 
earths in the hay, which had formed a part of 
the food of the grass, behind it. ‘Thus was this 
curious problem resolved. 
Now all the glassy coating of a straw, which 
gives to the bonnets of fair ladies that shining 
look, is composed of earthy matter forming a 
part of the food of the wheat plant. Sometimes 
