Concerning the vine, we have proofs of its great antiquity in Europe as in Asia. Seeds of the grape have been found in the lake-dwellings of Castione, near Parma, which date from the age of bronze,[935] in a prehistoric settlement of Lake Varese,[936] and in the lake-dwellings of Wangen, Switzerland, but in the latter instance at an uncertain depth.[937] And, what is more, vine-leaves have been found in the tufa round Montpellier, where they were probably deposited before the historical epoch, and in the tufa of Meyrargue in Provence, which is certainly prehistoric,[938] though later than the tertiary epoch of geologists.[939] A Russian botanist, Kolenati,[940] has made some very interesting observations on the different varieties of the vine, both wild and cultivated, in the country which may be called the central, and perhaps the most ancient home of the species, the south of the Caucasus. I consider his opinion the more important that the author has based his classification of varieties with reference to the downy character and veining of the leaves, points absolutely indifferent to cultivators, and which consequently must far better represent the natural conditions of the plant. He says that the wild vines, of which he had seen an immense quantity between the Black and Caspian Seas, may be grouped into two sub-species which he describes, and declares are recognizable at a distance, and which are the point of departure of cultivated vines, at least in Armenia and the neighbourhood. He recognized them near Mount Ararat, at an altitude where the vine is not cultivated, where, indeed, it could not be cultivated. Other characters—for instance, the shape and colour of the grapes—vary in each of the sub-species. We cannot enter here into the purely botanical details of Kolenati’s paper, any more than into those of Regel’s more recent work on the genus _Vitis_;[941] but it is well to note that a species cultivated from a very remote epoch, and which has perhaps two thousand described varieties, presents in the district where it is most ancient, and probably presented before all cultivation, at least two principal forms, with others of minor importance. If the wild vines of Persia and Kashmir, of Lebanon and Greece, were observed with the same care, perhaps other sub-species of prehistoric antiquity might be found. The idea of collecting the juice of the grape and of allowing it to ferment may have occurred to different peoples, principally in Western Asia, where the vine abounds and thrives. Adolphe Pictet,[942] who has, in common with numerous authors, but in a more scientific manner, considered the historical, philological, and even mythological questions relating to the vine among ancient peoples, admits that both Semitic and Aryan nations knew the use of wine, so that they may have introduced it into all the countries into which they migrated, into India and Egypt and Europe. This they were the