Three small-grained varieties of common wheat were cultivated by the first lake dwellers of Switzerland (time of Trojan war), as well as by the less ancient lake dwellers of western Switzerland and of Italy, by the people of Hungary in the stone age, and by the Egyptians, on evidence of a brick of a pyramid in which a grain was embedded and to which the date of 3359 B. C. has been assigned. The existence of names for wheat in the most ancient languages confirms this evidence of the antiquity of its culture in all the more temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but it seems improbable that wheat has ever been found growing persistently in a wild state, although the fact has often been asserted by poets, travelers, and historians. In the Odyssey, for example, we are told that wheat grew in Sicily without the aid of man, but a blind poet could not have seen this himself, and a botanical fact can hardly be accepted from a writer whose own existence has been contested. Diodorus repeats the tradition that Osiris found wheat and barley growing promiscuously in Palestine, but neither this nor other discoveries of persistent wild wheat seem to us to be credible, seeing that wheat does not appear to be endowed with a power of persistency except under culture.--Edinburgh Review. The origin of baking precedes the period of history and is involved in the obscurity of the early ages of the human race. Excavations made in Switzerland gave evidence that the art of making bread was practiced by our prehistoric ancestors as early as the stone period. From the shape of loaves it is thought that no ovens were used at that time, but the dough was rolled into small round cakes and laid on hot stones, being covered with glowing ashes. Bread is mentioned in the book of Genesis, where Abraham, wishing to entertain three angels, offered to "fetch a morsel of bread." Baking is again referred to where Sarah has instructions to "make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it and make cakes upon the hearth." Lot entertained two angels by giving them unleavened bread. The mere mention of unleavened bread shows that there were two kinds of bread made even at that time.