312 SURVIVAL OF PLANTS BURIED UNDER GLACIERS. 



We shall even go a step further, and endeavour 

 to show that it may actually be possible for plants 

 to exist for ages in a state of profound coma, beneath 

 glaciers, without perishing; and that as time rolls on, 

 when a change of circumstances causes the glacier to 

 retreat, their vegetative process is resumed. This resur- 

 rection of plant life (if it be a fact that it does take place) 

 is a phenomenon so very wonderful that no words of 

 ours are adequate to convey an idea of its truly 

 marvellous nature : the fact however that perennial 

 plants are now known to spring up immediately in 

 the rear of the retreating ice, goes a long way to 

 establish its authenticity. In the natural course of 

 things, it would be annuals, and other plants whose 

 seeds are known to be carried long distances by the 

 wind, that might be expected to be the first to appear 

 in this way, but the vegetation of glacier lands is so 

 poor that this class of plants fails to distribute them- 

 selves in the usual way. 



Professor Meehan has given his reasons for believing 

 in these facts, for in a catalogue of plants, collected 

 along the coast of Alaska in 1883, he states that they 

 were not found merely to follow in the wake of glaciers, 

 or to grow from material brought down by them in 

 their advance; but that what he saw convinced him 

 that they remained for an indefinite period in existence 

 under the ice, retaining vitality, and pushing again 

 into growth when the ice retreated, and he explains 

 that he was led to this conclusion, 



" from finding no annuals in the immediate wake of retreating 

 glaciers in Alaska, where the number of perennials would be 

 as great as if much time had been given for floral advance. 

 These and other facts led to the hypothesis that these plants 



