A. Winchell on the Prairies of the Mississippi Valley. 341 
More superficial portions of the drift deposit had yielded to the 
destructive agencies of a geological period, the action of the sea 
would have uncovered and brought to light some of the more 
deeply seated and better protected seeds. If, then, our reason- 
mgs are correct, returning spring time vivified into activity. 
the myriads of germs stored away by Nature from before the 
reign of ice; and the continent was again clothed with those 
forms of verdure which had adorned it at the close of the Ter- 
tary period. But at this moment in the world’s history, the re- 
he bosom’ of the slime no plant could start, for the germ was 
not there. From beneath the load of slime, in the diluvial de- 
sane below, no plant could raise its head, for it was sealed 
rmetically from air and light and warmth. A shining coat of 
ergence of the continent, we have not overlooked Darwin's experi- 
ments recorded ip th r a # Chronicle for May 26th, 1855. While 
the experiments show a w er of resistin destructive influence 
: ts 
onde: 
Sea water, it is still apparent that the conditions of the experiments were such as 
_ to — no light on the fate of seeds buried deeply in a submarine sand bed. It 
will be remembered further, that the filtration of sea water through a mass of sand, 
deprives it of its saltness, so that this agency in the destruction of vegetable germs 
poy in a submarine soil a great extent eli Compare 
Proceedings Bos, Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. iii, pp. 92, 103. 
