90 Prolonged Vitality of Seeds. 



there is a large peat-bog, a great part of which has been flooded 

 away, by raising water from the river Teith and discharging 

 it into the Forth, for the purpose of laying bare the undersoil 

 of clay for cultivation. The clergyman of the parish was on 

 one occasion standing by, while the workmen were forming a 

 ditch in this clay, in a part which had been covered with four- 

 teen feet of peat earth ; observing some seeds in the clay thrown 

 out of this ditch, he took them up and sowed them. They 

 germinated, and produced a species of Chrysanthemum. A 

 very long period must have elapsed whilst the first covering 

 of clay was formed over the seeds, and of the time necessary 

 to produce fourteen feet of peat earth above this, it is scarcely 

 possible to form an idea. 



The following circumstance, which occurred in Maine about 

 thirty years ago, is still more remarkable. Some well-diggers 

 while sinking a well, at the distance of about forty miles from 

 the sea, when they arrived at the depth of about twenty feet 

 struck a layer of sand. This excited their curiosity and inter- 

 est, from the circumstance that no similar sand was to be found 

 anywhere in the neighborhood, nor in any other place except 

 on the sea-beach. As it was drawn up from the well, they 

 placed it in a pile by itself, and did not mix with it the stones 

 and gravel which were also drawn up. But when the work 

 was finished, and the pile of stones and gravel removed, the 

 sand was scattered about on the spot where it had been at first 

 placed, and was for some time scarcely remembered. In a 

 year or two, however, it was perceived that a number of small 

 trees had sprung from the ground where the sand had been 

 strewn. These trees became in their turn, objects of strong 

 interest, and care was taken to preserve them from injury. At 

 length they were ascertained to be Beach Plum trees, a spe- 

 cies of Prunus, which had never before been seen, except in> 

 mediately upon the sea-shore, and they actually bore the 

 beach plum. These trees must therefore have grown from 

 seeds which had existed in the stratum of sea-sand pierced 

 by the well-diggers, and had remained inactive until this was 

 dispersed in such a manner as to expose them to the air. « By 

 what convulsion of the elements," adds the narrator, "they 



