86 



KNOWLEDGE. 



March, 1913. 



Figure 80. 

 Wheat of the year 1852, longitudinal section. 



Figure 81. 

 Wheat of the vear 1852, transverse section. 



The most stable of the articles of food found in the 

 ancient Egyptian tombs is wheat, and it would 

 certainly add fuel to the lire of imagination, if from 

 the wheat grains of a date somewhere about the 

 time of the supremacy of Joseph in Egypt could be 

 grown a crop of corn whose life had lain dormant 

 for so many centuries. 



In cases where authentic Mummy Wheat has been 

 used, all attempts to secure germination have failed, 

 though it will not be without interest briefly to 

 review some of the failures and supposed successes 

 in growing wheat and other seeds which were 

 known to be of great antiquity, and to examine the 

 possibility of the existence of life after so many ages. 

 The conditions which regulate the speed of 

 germination can only be said to be indirectly 

 connected with vitality since, in many cases, whilst 

 germination is the exhibition of vitality, the causes 

 which retard germination are purely physical 

 characteristics of the seed. 



Thus, certain seeds 

 with thick impervious 

 integuments, such as 

 clover, which under 

 favourable circum- 

 stances germinate with- 

 in one or two weeks, 

 may be found quite 

 sound and dry inter- 

 nally though kept con- 

 tinuously wet on the 

 outside for many years. 

 In such cases it seems 

 that a scratch is suffi- 

 cient to cause almost 

 immediate germination 

 by allowing the mois- 

 ture to penetrate the 

 protective outer coating. 

 The appearance of 

 strange plants in newly- 



turned earth removed 

 from excavations, has 

 been attributed to this 

 power in seeds of lying 

 dormant till, by the fric- 

 tion with the earth, the 

 tough integument has 

 been entered and the 

 moisture allowed to 

 reach the embryo. 



The older the seed 

 the lower is the prob- 

 able vitality of that 

 kind, and it is, of course, 

 a well-known fact that 

 the older seed, with the 

 life still in it, requires 

 greater coaxing to bring 

 about germination, and 

 that the plant resulting 

 from it is more weakly in its growth. 



In considering wheat, therefore, say three thousand 

 years old, whilst it is certainly not impossible to 

 imagine that it may, if kept for that time under 

 ideal conditions, still be capable of germination, 

 it is hardly to be expected that it should show signs 

 of life, seeing that the conditions under which it has 

 passed so many years in the Egyptian tombs, though 

 good, were still such as would allow decay to set in, 

 and a certain amount of air and damp to assist the 

 decomposition. 



The thickness and impenetrability of the outer 

 husk or covering is the chief governing factor for the 

 duration of vitality in seeds under equal conditions 

 of environment. 



According to the most recent researches* the 

 power of germination of barley and wheat is but little 

 affected during the first five years, but thereaftera rapid 

 loss of vitality occurs and proceeds at an increasing 

 rate till, in the tenth vear, 



no living seeds remain. 



Figure 82. 

 Wheat of the year 1853, longitudinal section. 



Figure 83. 

 Wheat of the year 1853, transverse section. 



W. Carruthers, Roy. Agric. Soc, 1911, p. 168. 



