FUNCTION.] HOW BEST MAINTAINED. 267 



place, such as a coarse bag suspended to a nail in a cabin, 

 counteract the dangers to which farinaceous and similar 

 seeds are usually exposed. But with the second class such 

 precautions are ineffectual. For oily seeds, Beech-mast, 

 Acorns, Nuts, and grain of a similar nature, the exclusion of 

 air is indispensable. The mode of securing this object is 

 usually to enclose seeds in dry earth or sand rammed hard ; 

 or in charcoal powder, the whole covered with tin or put in a 

 stout box; and no better common method seems to exist. 

 It is, however, far from perfect, and therefore much disap- 

 pointment occasionally attends its use. It is worth inquiring 

 whether all seeds would not preserve their vitality most per- 

 fectly if kept in an atmosphere of carbonic acid, which would 

 seem likely to oppose an effectual barrier to those changes 

 which destroy seminal life. 



In order to illustrate the circumstances under which the 

 vitality of seeds is preserved accidentally for a long series of 

 years, I cannot do better than give the substance of a state- 

 ment published a year or two ago by Mr. Kemp, in the 

 Annals of Natural History, vol. xiii. p. 89. This is one of the 

 few instances in which the suspension of vitality in seeds for 

 a very long period is unquestionable. This gentleman says 

 that, having received some seeds which were found at the 

 bottom of a sand-pit upwards of twenty-five feet in depth, he 

 most carefully examined into all the circumstances of their 

 discovery. They were first seen by a workman who was 

 excavating the finer sand at the bottom of the pit, in a part 

 which was rather undermined. The seeds were apparently 

 of only two kinds ; specimens of them, however, being sown 

 produced Polygonum Convolvulus, Rumex Acetosella and an 

 Atriplex. 



The sand-quarry in question is described as being situated 

 about a quarter of a mile west of Melrose, and at the height 

 of between fifty and sixty feet above the nearest part of the 

 Tweed. The seeds were mingled with some decayed vegetable 

 fibres, and formed a layer resting upon another layer, eight 

 inches in thickness, of fine sandy clay. This latter lay over 

 a mass of gravel, which again rested on a great mound 

 belonging to the boulder formation. This mound, which 



