VITALITY OF BURIED VEGETABLE GERMS. 261 



Again : Lord Lindsay states that, in the course of his 

 wanderings amid the pyramids of Egypt, he stumbled on 

 a mummy proved by its hieroglyphs to be at least two 

 thousand years of age. On examining the mummy after 

 it was unwrapped, he found in one of its closed hands a 

 bulb, which, when planted in a suitable situation, grew and 

 bloomed in a beautiful dahlia. The credibility of this story 

 is very questionable, since the real dahlia is a tuberous-root- 

 ed Mexican genus, not known to botanists till the year IT 8 9. 

 That a bulb of any sort germinated under the circumstances 

 alleged is highly improbable, since the characteristic of the 

 surroundings of a mummy is perfect dryness, which would 

 completely change and devitalize the tissues of a bud-like 

 bulb. It is, however, more credibly asserted, and general- 

 ly believed, that wheat is now growing in England which 

 was derived from grains folded in the wrappings of Egyp- 

 tian mummies, where they must have lain for two or three 

 thousand years. Professor Gray, the eminent American 

 botanist, does not fully credit the account, but Dr. Carpen- 

 ter, the distinguished English physiologist and naturalist, 

 gives it his full indorsement.* 



Professor Agassiz asserts that " there are some well-au- 

 thenticated cases in which wheat taken from the ancient 

 catacombs of Egypt has been made to sprout and grow." 

 Dr. Carpenter even goes so far in this connection as to give 

 utterance to the following observations, which happen to 

 be extremely pertinent in the present instance : 



" These facts make it evident," he says, " that there is 

 really no limit to the duration of this condition (latent vi- 

 tality), and that when a seed has been preserved for ten 

 years, it may be for a hundred, a thousand, or ten thou- 



* On this subject and the longevity of seeds in general, see Beport of 

 the Commissioner of Patents for 1857, Agriculture, p. 256 (condensed 

 from the Gardener's Chronicle, London). 



