124 BOTANY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 



the seas. The ocean has thrown upon the 

 coasts of Norway the nuts of the Mahogany 

 and the fruit of the Cocoa-nut Tree, borne on its 

 waves from the far distant tropical regions, 

 which wonderful voyage has been performed 

 without injury to the vital energy of the seeds. 



Seeds are very tenacious of life, so much so, 

 that those taken from Egyptian mummies, which 

 have been accidently shut up in the process of 

 embalming, have, when modern research has 

 opened these mummies, and the seeds been 

 taken from them and planted, sprouted and pro- 

 duced fruit. 



L. The squirrels lay up their winter's store 

 of nuts under ground ; does not some of them, 

 now and then, take root and sprout ? 



E. Very often ; in fact so much so, that the 

 Indians had a tradition in which it was assert- 

 ed that these animals planted all the timber of 

 the country. So extensive is the circulation of 

 seeds, by various means, that climate alone forms 

 a limit to their universal diffusion ; this last is a 

 boundary they cannot pass with life, so that 

 each kind is confined within eternal although 

 invisible barriers. 



L. I have been reading a poem by Charlotte 



