It was clear to me now that some substances, probably germs of one kind or another, were being examined and treated by scientific methods, and were being subjected afterwards to some sort of discriminating culture. I began to guess at the purpose of all this, and quite suddenly a suspicion broke upon me which almost made me drop my glass with horror. And I may as well say here at once that knowledge which I obtained later on confirmed this horrible suspicion. Recovering myself, I turned my attention to the workers at the seed beds. The men engaged at the first bed went slowly along the walks taking every now and then something out of the boxes which were slung one over the shoulder of each, and planting it in the ground and covering it over. I saw that they examined also something already planted, and sometimes took it up and put it into the box. I could not tell, owing to the distance and the motion, whether or not what they took up exhibited any visible growth. The substances, whatever they were, which were thus taken up, were placed in a little waggon which ran at the eastern end of the bed at right angles to the walks, and conveyed its contents to the walks which separated the first bed from the second, and were dealt with by the workers there. If you ask me how I knew that it was the substances exhumed and not the substances in the parcels that were thus passed, I can only say that such was my conclusion from the whole aspect of the movement, for I could not accurately distinguish small objects at the distance. The way of working at the next four beds was not so different from what I have described, as to make it worth while attempting a detailed account. It will suffice to say that the mode of procedure was to sow something in each bed, and to take up something which had been down in order to transfer it to the next bed, and this latter process evidently involved much careful examination and discrimination. I should also mention that at the third bed and onward the workers wore masks, apparently wire masks of some elaborate construction. They wore them, not continuously, but whenever they stooped to the ground or examined very closely the substances with which they were dealing. At other times the masks hung at the girdles. At the fourth bed the workers wore the masks more frequently, and at the fifth they only removed them occasionally. The way of working at the sixth bed was different and will need a fuller description.