GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 363 



Ancient Mining. — Interesting discoveries have lately been made 

 in the San Domingo mines of Spain, showing the methods of min- 

 ing adopted by the ancients. In some of the mines, the Romans 

 dug draining galleries nearly three miles in length ; but in others 

 the water was raised by wheels to carry it over the rocks that 

 crossed the drift. Eight of these wheels have recently been dis- 

 covered by the miners who are now worJving in the same old 

 mines. The wheels are made of wood, — the arms and felloes of 

 pine, and the axle and its suppoi't of oali ; the fabric being remark- 

 able for the lightness of its construction. It is supposed that these 

 wheels cannot be less than fifteen hundred years old, and the 

 wood is in a perfect state of preservation, owing to its immersion 

 in water charged with the salts of copper and iron. From tiieir 

 position and construction, the wheels are supposed to have been 

 worked as treadmills, by men standing witli naked feet upon one 

 side. The water was raised by one wheel into a basin, from 

 which it was elevated another stage by the second wheel, and so 

 on for eight stages. — The Miner, San Francisco, Cal. 



Ancient Bronzes. — M. Fellenberg, of Berne, as the result of a 

 long series of anaylses of ancient bronzes, in which he gives their 

 composition and probable origin, sums up his opinions on the 

 subject as follows : The first knowledge of bronze might have 

 been brought to the tribes of the bronze period either by the 

 Phoenicians or by some other civilized people livingfurther towards 

 the south-east; but it then became a common property, and to a 

 certain extent the type of a whole epoch of civilization. It main- 

 tained and spontaneously developed itself, until, by the introduc- 

 tion and preponderant diffusion of iron, the general and exclusive 

 use of bronze, and at the same time the bronze period, came to an 

 end. 



The Age. of Stone, in France. — M. Gervais has described the 

 bones found in a natural excavation, several yards long, in Bail- 

 largues, France, which had been used as a burial-place in the age 

 of stone. The bones Avere those of adults, and some indicated an 

 advanced age ; in one case the femur was 0.465 metre long. A 

 cranium, presented to the Academy of Sciences, had the typical 

 form of tlie white race, it being brachycephalous, without a trace 

 of prognathism, and a' well-developed forehead. The flint im])le- 

 ments found indicated the age to which the people belonged. He 

 concludes, from the bones and other objects found, that during the 

 age of stone the country of Castries and much of Southern France 

 were inhabited by the race here indicated. 



Lake Habitations. — The recent discoveries of M. Messikomer 

 of Zurich, in the large turf-bed near Robenhausen, though they do 

 not give the key to the chronological enigma of the pale buildings 

 and tlieir inhabitants, tlirow considerable light on their manner of 

 living and the condition of their civilization. It has been found 

 that on this curious sj)ot there were three of these old settlements, 

 one on the top of the other. The two oldest settlements had been 

 destroyed by fire, but the third, the j^ales of which do not consist 

 of round wood, had been abandoned and not destroyed. All three 

 settlements belong to the stone period ; not the slightest trace of 



