.Appendix. 83 



ren rocks, and upon the decaying wooden roofs of old buildings, 

 as well as upon the buckets of wells and also with the sea-weed 

 growing at the bottom of the ocean. 



Many facts, which constitute clear and satisfactory evidence 

 of spontaneous vegetation, are presented by Prof. A. Winchell, 

 late of the University of Michigan, in his work entitled 

 " Sketches of Creation." On page 250, he says : " Nothing is a 

 more common observation than to see plants making their ap- 

 pearance in situations where the same species was previously un- 

 known, or for a long time unknown, and under circumstances 

 such, that the supposition of a recent distribution of seeds is 

 quite precluded." 



Again he says: "Earth thrown out of cellars and wells is 

 generally known to send up a ready crop of weeds, and not 

 unfrequently, of species previously unknown in that spot. In all 

 these cases (many being cited), after allowing for all known pos- 

 sibilities of the distribution of seeds by winds, birds, and waters, 

 it seems probable that germs must have previously existed in 

 the soil " 



The Panspermists attribute the production of animalcules in 

 vegetable infusions, put up and sealed in glass flasks, to germs 

 and spores in the atmosphere, drawn into the flasks before they 

 were sealed. The seeds of plants and trees, herbs and grasses 

 do not grow and mature in the ground, where new plants origin- 

 ate. Do the germs from which they grow originate in the 

 ground, as the Panspermists maintain that the germs of animal- 

 cules originate in the atmosphere ? If such germs of plants, 

 grasses, etc , originate in the ground, as they must, what can be 

 the process, other than that of spontaneous generation ? To 

 account for the origin of plants and grasses in mysterious cases, 

 the Panspermists must invent new fallacies, and present to the 

 public new dogmas. Their old fallacies and dogmas will not 

 answer the purpose. They will not bear the light of reason and 

 common sense. 



The germs of plants, not formed in seeds of previons plants, 

 but originating in the ground, could not have had a parental ori- 

 gin ; they must have been generated in the ground, as animal- 



