150 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



chlorophyll remains in the leaves, and the sugar in 

 the pulp of the raisins. Dr. Schweinf urth has deter- 

 mined no less than fifty-nine species, some of which 

 are represented by the fruits employed as offerings 

 to the dead, others by flowers and leaves made into 

 garlands, and the remainder by branches on which 

 the body was placed and which were inclosed within 

 the wrappings." * 



Among the fruits used as votive offerings, dates. 

 figs and palm fruits are common, and are identical 

 with those which are still seen in the markets of 

 Egypt. Branches of the sycamore, one of the sacred 

 trees of Egypt, which had been used for the bier of 

 a mummy belonging to the twelfth dynasty, a thou- 

 sand years B.C., " were moistened and laid out by 

 Dr. Schweinf urth, equaling," he says, " the best speci- 

 mens of this plant in our herbaria, and consequently 

 permitting the most exact comparison with living 

 sycamores, from which they differ in no respect." 



Very large quantities of linseed, found in tombs 

 three thousand and four thousand years old, differ 

 in nowise from the linseed still cultivated in the 

 Nile valley. And from the seeds examined it has 

 also been evinced, that the weeds which infest the 

 cultivated fields of today were not absent from the 



1 See opening address before the Biological Section of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, as reported 

 in Nature* Sept. 9. 1886. Mr. Carruthers is recognized as one 

 of the most eminent of contemporary English botanists, and 

 hence, his words in the matter under discussion have special 

 weight. 



I have myself examined Dr. Schweinfurth's wonderful col- 

 lections in Cairo, and can testify that Mr. Carruthers" account of 

 them is in no waj exaggerated. 



