LESSONS FROM MUMMY CASES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7696, 19 March 1887, Page 6

LESSONS FROM MUMMY CASES.

: When tho ancient Egyptians cm- ,wl balmed their dead, with so much care Mi they did not suspect that thousands of ; years after their time other races. would a P open their sepulchres and sarcophagi, fo: and find therein evidence of great value th and significance for the explication of sh modern world problems. It was a cus- th torn of those ancient Egyptians to bury tri seeds and sometimes plants with their of dead. They commonly mado a li"ht bier 1> ( for the bony of freshly-cut green boughs m with the leaves on, and it was customary St in swathing the corpse with it 3 mortuary co bandages- to enclose this light bier in be them. These plants remain, with many ne others more purposely deposited on or w about the bodies or in the sepulchral o£ chambers, have boen resurrected re- st oently from many old tombs never before n opened, and the information they give °' us is interesting and suggestive. Pro- '° fessor William Garruthrr.-i, president of " the biological seotion of the British As- °' sociation, discussed these discoveries in cl his opening address, and while ho re- *j framed from making any application of tho facts ascertained, the mere state- " ment of them is enough to demonstrate " their scopo and bearing. It results from f. : the hermetic sea'ing of the plants and seeds referred to that they have been v . preserved, for tho most part, as fresh as tl when they were deposited, and very " fortunately their first examination has a been made by an eminent botanist, Dr P Sohweinfurth, who was for a quarter of a century been exploring the flora of tho ~ Nile Valley. Bjr putting those plants ' in ivarm water Dr Schweinfurth has re- * stored them almost completely. The I flowers are still present, even the * most evanescent, such as the violet of " tho larkspur and knapweed, and the J ecarlot of the poppy ; the chlorophyll r remains in the leaves, and the sugar in ' Me pulp of the raisins. Dr Schweinf urth ; has determined no less than fifty-nine species, aad what is most remarkable • Is that the characteristics of nearly every ' one of these species are indentical with J those of the same family at the present .' day. An exception exists in the case of ' a certain vine, tho under surface of ' whose leaves was formerly clothed with white hairs, which are no longer found. . But the great majority of the plants, seeds, and even the weeds, discovered' in the tombs, resemble in all respeots tho modern species, and when we realise that this fact indicates a stability of forms and character during from four to five thousand years it will bo seen that tile facts possess strong suggestiveness in relation to the evolutionary theory. Barley 5400 years old has beon found by Marietto Bey in a grave of tho fifth dynasty, nt Sakhnra. This barley is precisely similar to the grain of today. The increase of agricultural science has produced no apparent improvement in the grain during that long period, nor has ie changed from its primal type in any way. A garland was found in another tomb of wild celery. The leaves, floweiv, and fruits of the wild celery have been examined with the. greatest care by Dr Schweinfurth,. who has demonstrated in the clearest manner their absolute indentity with the indigenous form of this species now abundant in most places in Egypt. No doubt it is true that the periods required for the cooling and gradual stocking of the earth with vegetation and animal Hfe by modern geology seem to afford ample. space for the evolution 1 of apecie.s. But when we find that' a large number of plants have undergone no changes at all in five or six thousand 1 years, it is apparent that the ovidenco, 1 though not in any sense conclusive, ' makes against. the hypothesis whioh is most generally accepted at present. But 1 it is possible to go very much further 1 back than Egypt for evidence. Plant re--1 mains have been found in sedimentary ' deposits older the glacial drift — giving them an age of from 50,000 to 100,000 years— and those plants presentnodifforences from tho same species as they exist to-day. It may be said, therefore, that the testimony of ancient plant remains, ' so far as it goes, seems to oppose the ' evolutionary hypothesis ; or at least to acquire the assumption of perhaps even longer periods of mutation than the most liberal estimates of the modern geologists have allowed for the earth's formation. Tribune, New York.