324 GEOEGB JOHN EOMANBS 1893 



country house and a life in which ' good works ' were 

 to have a share. 



He had always had a high ideal of what Love and 

 Faith should bring about, and in the last months of his 

 life he said to one whom he dearly loved, ' Darling, 

 if you believe what you say you beheve, why should 

 you mind so much?' With absolute resignation 

 he gave up all his ambitions, the old longing for 

 distinction, for greater fame, and yet he did not 

 lose for one moment the old interest in his scientific 

 work. 



Two papers of his were read at the Eoyal Society 

 in October 1892. The first described experiments 

 undertaken by Mr. Romanes, the primary object of 

 which was to ascertain whether seeds which had been 

 kept out of contact with air for a lengthy period of time 

 still possessed the power of germination. The method 

 adopted was as follows : a certain number of seeds 

 were taken from each packet, mustard, cress, beans, 

 peas, &c., being the kinds employed, and having been 

 weighed in a chemical balance were sealed up in 

 tubes which had previously been exhausted of air, 

 and kept exposed to the vacuum for a period of 

 fifteen months. At the end of that time they were 

 removed from the tubes and sown in flower-pots 

 buried in moist soil. In some cases, after the seeds 

 had been in the vacuum tubes for three months, 

 they were transferred to other tubes charged with 

 pure gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, car- 

 bon monoxide, or with aqueous or chloroform vapour, 

 and there kept for a further period of twelve months, 

 when they were sown as before. 



In all cases the same number of seeds, of simi- 

 lar weights to those sealed up in the tubes, were 

 taken from each packet, kept in ordinary air for 

 the fifteen months, and then sown as control experi- 

 ments. 



