186 Miscellanies, 



hastily accredited report having been given, we have long supposed that 

 it was a mistake, and that credence had been too easily given by us to a 

 result which if true, would have been extremely important, and which 

 we confess we ought not to have admitted without the most rigorous 

 proof. Tt is now in our power to settle this matter on the authority of Mr. 

 Stickney himself, and through the kindness of our friend Josiah Thomp- 

 son of Philadelphia, from whom we have received a letter dated June 29, 

 ult., and covering a letter to him from Mr. Stickney dated Dec. 21, 1831, 

 thirteen years after the first publication of the supposed discovery of cin- 

 nabar. Mr. Thompson remarks : '' When in the west some years ago I 

 visited the localities mentioned, (on the shores of lakes St. Clair and Erie,) 

 and soon found that the sand in question contained no mercury, but was 

 probably composed of garnets either broken up or in very small crystals. 

 I afterwards wrote on the subject to Mr. Stickney who gave me the sub- 

 stance of his subsequent researches in the annexed communication." 



" I should not have thought of reviving the thing at so late a period had 

 T not heard it alluded to by a very distinguished scientific lecturer, whose 

 authority for the assertions had been derived from the conununications 



originally appearing in your widely circulated Journal, and which have 

 been transferred to several standard works both American and European. 



We now quote Mr. Stickncy's statement: 



*^ Some nine or ten years since I lay wind bound on the western shore 

 of Lake Erie, with a small craft for several days, near the mouth of Otter 

 Creek, a little south of Pleasant Bay, where the black and garnet colored 

 sand is abundant- It struck me as probable, that it was a sulphuret of 

 mercury. I levigated a few grains of the latter between two stones; the 

 bright, opaque, red appearance when broken tended to confirm me in the 

 opinion- Having no other employment, I mixed clay, water, and sand, 

 with my hands and formed it into a retort and receiver; dried them in 

 the sun ; and afterwards baked them in the hot sand and ashes when 

 we had a fire on the beach. I then introduced a small portion of the red 

 sand into tlic retort ; it could be but a small portion, as it did not hold 

 more than half a pint. I set up my apparatus with small stones; fitting 

 on and luting the receiver with some of the same clay and sand. Thus 

 prepared, I put charcoal from our fire into the little furnace, and blowed 

 them with a blowpipe made of a hollow weed. After continuing it (or a 

 time at a low red heat and permitting it to cool moderately, I broke tlie re- 

 ceiver, and discovered, as I then conceived, minute globules of mercury. 

 I now concluded T liad determined the presence of mercury in the sand. 

 I took with me quantities of the sand; and when I returned home I sub- 

 mitted some of the red sand pulverised to nitro-muriatic acid, and precipi- 

 tatmgthe solution with carbonate of potash, I had a copious white precip- 

 itate. I weighed the sand ; but having accidentally spilled some of the 

 solution, I did not weigh the result, I made minutes at the time which 



