THE USE OF ACETYLENE. 335 



Even if we consider the agency of the streams tliat now are but 

 insignificant inflowing- lirooks in spreading, during their freshet 

 stages, sand over level areas, we must still go l)ack to a time when 

 thej were streams of infinitely greater magnitude than they have 

 been for many centuries, and before, too, the Indian was a skilled 

 chipi^cr of jasper and a potter of taste, else why the absence of these 

 products of his skill in the deeper sands? It matters not how we 

 look at it, wdiether as geologists or archaeologists, or whether it is 

 all post-glacial, or the starting point is still so distant as ice-age ac- 

 tivities, the sequence of events is unaffected. We still have paleo- 

 lithicity in the gravel, argillite and the discovery of pottery syn- 

 chronous with the deposition of the gravel-capping sand, and, lastly, 

 the Indian. 



The record is not a diflicult one to read, and never has been, and 

 the manifold attempts to modernize all traces of man on the eastern 

 coast of Xorth America can safely be relegated to the limbo of mis- 

 directed energy. Studied in the proper spirit and after the need- 

 ful preliminary study of archaeology as a whole, the student will find 

 himself, wdien in the field — ever a more desirable place than the 

 museum — face to face with evidences of an antiquity that is to be 

 measured bv centuries rather than bv vears. 



THE USE OF ACETYLENE. 



By EDWARD RENOUF, 



COLLEGIATE PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, JOHNS HOPKIXS UNIVERSITY. 



IT is now five years since the use of acetylene as an illuminant was 

 suggested to the public, and it may be of interest to give a sketch 

 of wdiat has been done during this time, especially as it seems that 

 with the year 1899 the tentative period which must characterize every 

 new industry is in some respects passed, and a period of solid and 

 well-directed industrial effort, backed by ample capital, has begun. 

 The knowledge gained during this tentative period by the laboratory 

 experiments of scientific men, and by the practical work of inventors 

 and promoters, has made it possible for the industry to enter on its 

 new phase. To understand its present and to foresee its future im- 

 portance it is necessary briefly to review the work of the last years. 

 In May, 1892, Mr. Thomas Willson, a Canadian electrician, tried 

 to make the metal calcium in an electric furnace in his works at Spray, 

 North Carolina, by heating a mixture of lime and coal dust. He 

 thought that the lime (calcium oxide) would act on the coal (carbon) 

 to form calcium and carbon monoxide. He did not succeed in get- 



