[468] Gmelin, quoted by Southey, in Common place Book, 1st ser., London, 1849, p. 239. [469] Malte-Brun, Univ. Geog., Philadelphia, 1827, vol. 1, lib. 87, p. 483. [470] Von Wrangel, Polar Expedition, New York, 1842, p. 188. [471] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. xxxiv. [472] Travels on the Amazon, p. 311. [473] Gumilla, Orinoco, Madrid, 1741, p. 102; the Guamas, also, ibid., pp. 102 and 108. [474] Malte-Brun, Univ. Geog., Phila., 1827, vol. 3, lib. 87, p. 323. [475] Anthropology, vol. 1, p. 116. [476] Spencer, Desc. Sociology. [477] Pliny, Nat. History, lib. 18, cap. 29. [478] Asiatick Researches, Calcutta, 1801, vol. 7, p. 440. [479] Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p. 2233. [480] Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 2, p. 140. [481] Voyage of Capt. Amasa Delano, Boston, 1847, p. 230. Compare with the ordeal of Scotch conspirators, who ate a fragment of barley bread together. [482] Gauthier de la Peyronie, Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. 4, p. 75. [483] Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 63. [484] Macaulay quoted in Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 85. [485] Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 83. [486] Du Cange, Glossarium, articles "Crispellæ" and "Crespellæ." [487] Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 88. [488] Heath, A Hoosier in Russia, p. 109. [489] Nat. Hist., lib. 18, cap. 28. [490] Wheat, which, is now the bread corn of twelve European nations and is fast supplanting maize in America and several inferior grains in India, was no doubt widely grown in the prehistoric world. The Chinese cultivated it 2700 B. C. as a gift direct from Heaven; the Egyptians attributed its origin to Isis and the Greeks to Ceres. A classic account of the distribution of wheat over the primeval world shows that Ceres, having taught her favorite Triptolemus agriculture and the art of bread-making, gave him her chariot, a celestial vehicle which he used in useful travels for the purpose of distributing corn to all nations. Ancient monuments show that the cultivation of wheat had been established in Egypt before the invasion of the shepherds, and there is evidence that more productive varieties of wheat have taken the place of one, at least, of the ancient sorts. Innumerable varieties exist of common wheat. Colonel Le Couteur, of Jersey, cultivated 150 varieties; Mr. Darwin mentions a French gentleman who had collected 322 varieties, and the great firm of French seed merchants, Vilmorin-Andrieux et C^{ie}, cultivate about twice as many in their trial ground near Paris. In their recent work on Les meilleurs blés M. Henry L. de Vilmorin has described sixty-eight varieties of best wheat, which he has classed into seven groups, though these groups can hardly be called distinct species, since M. Henry L. de Vilmorin has crossbred three of them, _Triticum vulgare_, _Triticum turgidum_ and _Triticum durum_, and has found the offspring fertile.