194 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Lif 



Lasting-ness of Life under Right Conditions. 



Properly ripened seeds, if placed in certain conditions, are 

 literally immortal. That is to say, they are capable of retain- 

 ing their growing power indefinitely ; not merely for a few 

 centuries, but for thousands of years, how long, indeed, no 

 man can say. The earthly crust of our planet appears to be 

 stocked in every part with seeds that have been produced in 

 years gone by, scattered upon the surface, and subsequently 

 covered up with soil. Whenever the ground is disturbed, 

 either by the plough or by the spade of the railway excavator, 

 or for any purpose which causes its depths to be overturned, 

 that portion which was many feet below being thrown to the 

 surface, and exposed to the air, the sunbeams, and the moisture 

 of dew and rain, immediately their springs up a crop of young 

 plants, certainly not originating in seeds only just then brought 

 from neighbouring fields, and as certainly from seeds that have 

 been lying in the soil for ages. How they came to be covered 

 up is easy to conceive when we see with our own eyes what is 

 done by wintry floods, and the sweeping down of great masses 

 of earth and soil, which accumulate often to a considerable 

 depth, and are no doubt similarly charged with seeds that, after 

 waiting their turn, will some day grow. For it is a clearly 

 established fact that no seed can germinate or begin to sprout 

 unless it have the threefold influence in direct operation upon 

 it of warmth, moisture^ and the atmosphere. Let it be shut in 

 from the access of these and it lies passive, giving no sign of 

 life or growth, and incapable of doing so. LI. 



The Expansiveness of Strong Life. 



The banyan or Indian fig-tree (Ficus indica) surpasses in 

 diameter the finest oaks of Europe, and is of evergreen foliage. 

 It possesses the power of reproduction and multiplication. It 

 throws off numerous branches, of which several redescend to- 

 wards the earth, force their way into it, take root therein, and 

 in their turn develop into new trunks, whence spring other 

 boughs that go through the same process of fructification ; so 

 that a single stem spreads in time into a kind of forest, and 



