POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



283 



of the age of the present geysers by observa- 

 tion of the rate of deposit of sinter indicates 

 a great antiquity for them over twenty-five 

 thousand years for " Old Faithful." Our 

 accurate knowledge of them only began in 

 1871. The number of geysers, hot springs, 

 mud-pots, and paint-pots scattered over the 

 park exceeds thirty-five hundred, and the 

 addition of the fumaroles and solfataras 

 would make the whole number of actual 

 vents double that. 



Mound-Bnilders and Indians. "Some 

 Popular Errors in regard to Mound-Builders 

 and Indians" are reviewed by Mr. Gerard 

 Fowke, in the " Ohio Archaeological and His- 

 torical Quarterly." The high civilization 

 ascribed to the mound-builders is denied, 

 because they have left no evidence that they 

 could use stone-dressing tools, could carry 

 earth only in baskets or skins, and have 

 left no indications of having possessed a 

 written language or domestic animals, etc. 

 Against the assumption that they possessed 

 a great population, it is shown that while 

 the construction of all their works in Ohio 

 did not require an amount of labor equal to 

 that used in the excavation of certain mod- 

 ern works, there is nothing in the way of 

 their having had an indefinite time in which 

 to perform it. While " there is sufficient 

 accuracy in some cases to make one wonder 

 that the builders could have done as well as 

 they did, no evidence appears of any 'cal- 

 culation' beyond the mere sighting and 

 measuring possible to any one." The sup- 

 posed evidences of the great antiquity of 

 the mounds and of the extensive commerce 

 of the builders are assumed to be insuffi- 

 cient or fallacious ; minor errors, concern- 

 ing the distance from which the earth used 

 in building the mounds had to be brought, 

 concerning the size of the builders, the 

 soundness and other peculiarities of their 

 teeth, and the supposed artistic excellence of 

 their work, are corrected ; and the questions 

 whether there is anything in their work that 

 the Indians could not have executed, and 

 whether the Indians had knowledge of them, 

 are taken up. Traditions exist among the 

 Indians of Michigan and Wisconsin of tribes 

 who built mounds, and of definite occasions 

 when mounds were built. A certain tribe 

 were called by the Sioux Ground-House In- 



dians, because they lived in houses covered 

 with earth. The chronicles of De Soto's ex- 

 pedition describe the houses of the Cherokees 

 as being built upon mounds, and the French 

 give a similar description of the house of the 

 king of the Natchez. Certain earthworks in 

 western New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania 

 are conceded to have been built by the Iro- 

 quois and adjacent tribes. The Indians of the 

 Ohio Valley may have been ignorant of the 

 subject, because they were a comparatively 

 recent arrival. It is objected that the In- 

 dians could not have built the mounds, be- 

 cause the builders must have been a settled 

 and agricultural people, while the Indians 

 live by hunting and fishing. But it is a his- 

 torical fact that, before they were disturbed 

 by the whites, the Indians also were agricult- 

 urists, raised good crops, and stored their 

 grain, so that they were able to supply the 

 expeditions that came among them. We 

 can not judge of what they were from what 

 they are, after having been ruined by their 

 contests with the whites and their vices. 

 The race that produced a Logan, a Corn 

 Planter, a Red Jacket, a Tecumseh, and 

 other men of like genius, might also have 

 developed men competent to construct all 

 the works that now puzzle us. Some of Mr. 

 Fowke's assertions are traversed and shown 

 to be erroneous in the " American Antiqua- 

 rian," which, while it admits that the Indians 

 built mounds, holds that there were other 

 and more extensive mound-builders before 

 them. 



Experiments in Germination. A series 

 of testings of the influences of certain condi- 

 tions on the sprouting of seeds, described in 

 a bulletin of the experiment station at Cor- 

 nell University, indicates that variations of 

 temperature are an important factor in the 

 matter, and that a constant temperature 

 gives quicker results than an ordinarily vari- 

 able one of which that is the mean. The 

 mean employed in most of the experiments 

 was 74 ; but there is probably a tolerably 

 well-defined best temperature for each spe- 

 cies of plant, the limit of which is not close- 

 ly determined for most garden seeds. Soak- 

 ing the seeds does not appear to influence 

 the total amount of sprouting ; nor does it 

 seem to hasten the sprouting, if the planting- 

 time is reckoned from the moment of putting 



