Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/226

 "It was known only too well in these regions at one time," was my reply. I then proceeded to give some account of its nature, warning him of the difficulty of extirpating it if once it gained a footing.

"It would not have much chance against our present methods of cultivation," said Hulmar, who had listened with deep interest to what I said. "It will be as well, however, to take measures of precaution."

As we walked toward the house, he told how Reva, to whom all the native plants were known, had remarked the strange plant growing in a corner of the garden. The only probable explanation he could frame to account for its presence there was this. The year before, a glass vessel that seemed to contain coin, or similar objects, had been brought for his inspection. In the vessel, which they were obliged to saw in two in order to get at the coins, was a quantity of decayed vegetable matter, which was thrown into that corner of the garden.

On reaching the library, he showed me one of the coins, the date of which, as well as I could make it out, was A.D. 2758. A talk on the gradual change that had supervened in the forms of the numerical characters naturally led to the subject of early mathematics.

On that subject I happened to be fairly informed. I had once accepted the task of writing a review of a German history of mathematics. With the aid of "Montucla," and similar works, I succeeded in producing what my sister Maud regarded as the most brilliant of modern essays. For in it I had succeeded in contrasting my own exceeding knowledge of the subject with the Teuton's deplorable ignorance of what he had studied only as many