Before concluding this article, I think it pertinent to say that no grain taken from an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and sown by horticulturists has ever been known to germinate. It is not that the thing is impossible, for grains are all the better preserved that they are protected from the air and from variations of temperature or humidity, and certainly these conditions are fulfilled by Egyptian monuments; but, as a matter of fact, the attempts at raising wheat from these ancient seeds have not been successful. The experiment which has been most talked of is that of the Count of Sternberg, at Prague.[1820] He had received the grains from a trustworthy traveller, who assured him they were taken from a sarcophagus. Two of these seeds germinated, it is said, but I have ascertained that in Germany well-informed persons believe there is some imposture, either on the part of the Arabs, who sometimes slip modern seeds into the tombs (even maize, an American plant), or on that of the _employés_ of the Count of Sternberg. The grain known in commerce as mummy wheat has never had any proof of antiquity of origin. +Spelt and Allied Varieties or Species.+[1821] Louis Vilmorin,[1822] in imitation of Seringe’s excellent work on cereals,[1823] has grouped together those wheats whose seeds when ripe are closely contained in their envelope or husk, necessitating a special operation to free them from it, a character rather agricultural than botanical. He then enumerates the forms of these wheats under three names, which correspond to as many species of most botanists. +1. Spelt+—_Triticum spelta_, Linnæus. Spelt is now hardly cultivated out of south Germany and German-Switzerland. This was not the case formerly. The descriptions of cereals by Greek authors are so brief and insignificant that there is always room for hesitation as to the sense of the words they use. Yet, judging from the customs of which they speak, scholars think[1824] that the Greeks first called spelt _olyra_, afterwards _zeia_, names which we find in Herodotus and Homer. Dioscorides[1825] distinguishes two sorts of _zeia_, which apparently answer to _Triticum spelta_ and _T. monococcum_. It is believed that spelt was the _semen_ (corn, _par excellence_) and the _far_ of Pliny, which he said was used as food by the Latins for 360 years before they knew how to make bread.[1826] As spelt has not been found among the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy, and as the former cultivated the allied varieties called _T. dicoccum_ and _T. monococcum_,[1827] it is possible that the _far_ of the Latins was rather one of these.