“It is; and, what is more, it is not composed entirely of vegetable matter, but partly of stone; for every wheat straw contains enough flint to make a glass bead.”
“Oh, papa,” cried Agnes, “now you must be joking.”
“Indeed I am not. If a wheat straw be held in the flame of a candle, it will first turn to white ashes; and, if these ashes be still exposed to the flame, they will gradually melt into an imperfect sort of glass. When hay-ricks are burnt, there is always left a mass of dark, flinty matter, which closely resembles the dross sometimes thrown out of a glass-house.”
“How very curious!” cried Agnes.
“Did you ever see wheat in flower, my dear,” asked Mr. Bevan.
“Never, sir,” replied Agnes; and then, turning to her father, she said: “I suppose the gentleman wishes to make game of me; for wheat has no flowers,—has it papa?”
“Certainly, it has flowers, for it has perfect seeds; and all plants that have perfect seeds must have flowers. The flowers of the wheat are, however, inconspicuous, as they have no petals.”
While this conversation was passing, the train had kept whirling on, and Mrs. Merton had remarked two or three things that she thought worthy of the notice of her little daughter: she now called her attention to the windings of the river Mole, which has received its strange name from the manner in which it creeps along, and occasionally appears to bury itself under ground, as its waters are absorbed by the spongy and porous soil through which it flows. Agnes was very anxious to hear more of this curious river.
“It is remarkable,” said Mrs. Merton, “that it is not navigable in any part of its long course of forty-two miles; and that occasionally when the weather has been dry a long time, it disappears altogether. At the foot of Box-Hill, near Dorking, with regard to this phenomenon, it is supposed that there are cavities, or hollow places, under ground, which communicate with the bed of the river, and which are filled with water in ordinary seasons, but, in times of drought, become empty, and absorb the water from the river to refill them. When this is the case, the bed of the river becomes dry, and Burford bridge often presents the odd appearance of a bridge over land dry enough to be walked on. The river, however, always rises again about Letherhead, and suffers no further interruption in its course.”
While Mrs. Merton was speaking, the train had continued whirling on, and they had long passed the sluggish Mole, and had caught a glance of the more useful Wey; a river of about the same length as the Mole, but which has the advantage of being navigable for a great part of its course; and Agnes had watched the inhabitants of the little cottages which bordered the line of the railway trimming their gardens, and spreading their seeds out to dry in the sun. She had been amused, in one place, observing the careful manner in which a stack of faggots had been thatched, to keep it from the rain; and, in another, by observing the delight of a number of pigs, which had been turned into a stubble field, from which the corn had just been carried; and which ran about, grunting and capering, in a manner which none but pigs could ever accomplish. The train now passed another stream; and Agnes asked what river it was. “It is not a river,” said Mrs. Merton, “but the Basingstoke canal.”