POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



139 



position that the mound-builders were ac- 

 quainted with iron, or had intercourse with 

 people who had iron ; or that the mounds 

 were erected after the builders came in con- 

 tact with Europeans, or have been intruded 

 upon since they were built. The discovery, 

 during the past year, of masses of mete- 

 oric iron and several ornaments made of it 

 in mounds in the Little Miami Valley has 

 caused Professor F. W. Putnam to review 

 the statements that have been made in re- 

 lation to the subject. Examining the origi- 

 nal statements from which these deductions 

 have been drawn, he finds that the evidence 

 does not show that steel or iron was found. 

 Dr. Ilildreth described as among the articles 

 found at Marietta " three large circular boss- 

 es, or ornaments for a sword-belt, or a buck- 

 ler," composed of copper, overlaid with a 

 thick plate of silver. Dr. Atwater found at 

 Circleville a piece of antler, in one end of 

 which a hole had been bored, bound with a 

 band of silver, which he called " the handle 

 either of a small sword or large knife," and 

 distinctly states that " no iron was found, 

 but an oxide remained of similar shape and 

 size." On the same page he speaks of " a 

 plate of iron, which had become an oxide, 

 but, before it was disturbed by the spade, re- 

 sembled a plate of cast-iron." This oxide, 

 Mr. Putnam says, in the absence of exact 

 evidence, " could be readily accounted for by 

 one familiar with the traces of oxidized cop- 

 per, iron-colored clay, and traces of oxide of 

 iron, which are often met with in mound 

 explorations." Professor Putnam compares 

 the ' bosses ' described by Hildreth with 

 similarly-shaped articles of copper found in 

 mounds in Franklin, Tennessee, and in the 

 Little Miami Valley, which wei-e evidently 

 ear-ornaments, and decides that they were 

 of the same character. Dr. Hildreth also 

 describes " a plate of silver, which appears 

 to have been the upper part of a sword- 

 scabbard ; it is six inches in length and two 

 in breadth, and weighs one ounce ; it has 

 no ornaments or figures, but has three lon- 

 gitudinal ridges" (there are actually five), 

 " which probably correspond with edges, or 

 ridges, of the sword." This is compared 

 by Professor Putnam with a similar article 

 of copper from Franklin, Tennessee, and 

 another of meteoric iron from the Little 

 Miami, which were evidently not sword- 

 Bcabbards, though their precise use can only 



be conjectured. Thus, " not a shadow of a 

 sword can be traced in this connection ; the 

 point of the supposed scabbard is a com- 

 mon copper bead ; the upper part of the 

 scabbard is an ornament of a particular pat- 

 tern, of which three others almost identical 

 in shape are known from other mounds; 

 and the ' bosses ' or supposed ornaments of 

 a sword-belt are ear-rings." Dr. Hildreth 

 states, however, that a piece of iron-ore was 

 found in his mound, and Professor Putnam 

 regards this statement as of great interest, 

 " now that we know from the discoveries of 

 the past year that the peculiar and malle- 

 able qualities of meteoric iron were known 

 to the builders of the group of mounds 

 in the Little Miami Valley." The ear-orna- 

 ments, he also observes, " exhibit a degree 

 of skill in working the native metals of cop- 

 per, silver, and iron, simply by hammering, 

 which is conclusive evidence of the advance 

 made by early American tribes in ornament- 

 al art." 



Cnscientifie Science-Teaching.— Dr. W. 



B. Carpenter, in discussing a paper on " Sci- 

 ence-Teaching in Elementary Schools," re- 

 cently read before the London Society of 

 Arts, said that " the facts and conclusions 

 stated in the paper entirely accorded with 

 his own experience ; and he also agreed 

 with what Dr. Gladstone had said on the 

 importance of what might be called living 

 knowledge of these subjects, in opposition 

 to dead knowledge. For instance, the use 

 of an air-pump had been referred to : no- 

 body could teach a child the action of a 

 pump or the use of a barometer without ex- 

 plaining the pressure of the air, but that 

 was merely a form of words unless the 

 child had the air exhausted fro?n under 

 his hand, and felt that a considerable force 

 was necessary to withdraw it. From a long 

 experience of examinations, he could en- 

 tirely indorse what had been said of the 

 cramming system of getting up subjects 

 from books. He had examined in science 

 for the Indian Civil Service, and had often 

 found candidates giving the most excellent 

 descriptions, entirely from memory, out of 

 books, of objects which they did not even 

 know by sight when put before them. That 

 was not scientific knowledge at all, it was 

 merely something committed to memory ; 

 the only use of which was that it exercised 



