VITALITY OF SEEDS. 17 



about the mouths of long neglected pits, the soil of 

 which had been raised thirty or forty feet, or •where 

 previous to digging no such trees or vines existed. 

 This fact is to be referred only to a difference in 

 the quality of the soil at the depth alluded to, and 

 warrants us further in the conclusion that all soils 

 are impregnated with the seeds of the trees and 

 plants peculiar to them, as well at great depths as 

 on their surfaces. " 



A similar case is quoted by Geo. P. Marah, in 

 his work on " Earth and Man." On the Penobscot 

 Eiver in Maine, forty miles from the sea, a well was 

 dug, in the bottom of which sand similar to that of 

 the seashore was found. Some of this was placed 

 in a pile by itself and afterwards spread about the 

 place. The next season there sprang up in this 

 sand a number of trees, which when they came to 

 maturity were found to be the Beach Plum, which 

 never was known so far from the shore. The pres- 

 ence of these seeds, and the peculiar character of 

 the sand from the well, was accepted by some geol- 

 ogists as evidence that the sea-coast had formerly 

 occupied that spot. This and similar instances led 

 Professor Marsh to say that the vitality of seeds 

 "seems almost imperishable while they remain in 

 the situation in which nature deposits them. " 



Another case, which I have never seen doubted, 



is that of three Raspberry plants growing in the gar- 

 2 



