VITALITY OF BURIED VEGETABLE GERMS. 263 



Such a fact, so striking and so circumstantially recorded, 

 is only of the same nature as others less critically noted, 

 which daily pass before our eyes in the upspringing of 

 vegetable forms from the diluvial materials thrown out of 

 wells, cellars, and other excavations. 



The bones, the hair, and even the flesh of the extinct 

 mammoth have been preserved in glacial deposits on the 

 shores of Siberia. In so complete a state of preservation 

 has the flesh been found, that dogs and bears greedily de 

 voured it. If a material so perishable as muscular fibre 

 could be preserved since an epoch which antedates au 

 thentic history, is it not more probable that the oily tis 

 sues of vegetable seeds could resist the tendency to decay 

 under similar circumstances ? 



It must be confessed that the crucial observation is yet 

 to be made. If vegetable germs exist in the drift, they 

 can be discovered beforehand. I am not aware that any 

 thorough search has ever been made for them ; but, until 

 they have been actually detected, it is probable that even 

 the convincing facts cited above will fail to secure univer 

 sal assent to the doctrine of the prolonged vitality of the 

 seeds of pre-glacial vegetation. While, however, the case 

 is far from demonstrated, it may fairly be submitted that 

 the explanation of certain facts afforded by this theory is 

 less presumptuous and improbable than the supposition 

 of spontaneous generation, the fortuitous distribution of 

 seeds by any modern agency, or any other explanation 

 that has yet been offered. 



