DORMANT SEEDS. 243 



the earth, where storms and winds exercise their 

 most powerful effects, and where great hardness 

 and vitality are essential to preservation, are 

 especially protected by complex arrangements from 

 injury and from premature dampness. The Pine- 

 cone hard, woody, and rain-proof is a wonder- 

 ful envelope for the seed an envelope of singular 

 strength and endurance, and one capable of pre- 

 serving the vitality of the Pine-germs for marvel- 

 lously long periods of time. Convulsions of the 

 world's surface, though sometimes involving a 

 sacrifice of human life, have all some wise purpose, 

 and are always followed by compensatory in- 

 fluences. When by any convulsion of Nature the 

 surface of the ground is dismantled and stripped 

 temporarily of its vegetable growth, provision is 

 duly made for the reappearance of that green life 

 which is the earth's essential garment. But for 

 the vitality of seeds which are temporarily buried, 

 and apparently destroyed by such violent changes, 

 there might be no sufficient succession of fertility. 

 It is the fact, however of which undoubted proof 

 exists that seeds buried in geologic strata that 

 have remained buried under overlying seams of 

 E 2 



