Sept. t, 1870] 
NATURE 
367 
tertiaries and the Vicksburg bluff; but until such evidence be 
discovered we must discuss the question leaving these hypo- 
thetical cases entirely out of view, No solid and enduring 
scientific fabric can be reared on doubtful premises. The caves 
of our country have as yet scarcely been entered upon as ground 
for archzological research. But one cavern has been examined 
with any care, that of Carlisle, Pa., by Professor Baird—and 
this may be said to have been but partially explored. Human 
remains were found in it, but not of special interest. The fauna 
represented by the great number of bones collected there, is 
essentially the same with that which occupied the country on the 
advent of the whites. This remarkable fact, however, is re- 
ported by Professor Baird, that all the species represented in the 
collections made in the Carlisle cave, have degenerated in size, 
and this modern degeneracy ranges from ten to twenty-five per 
cent. The shell mounds on the Atlantic coast, north and south, 
haye been partially investigated by Prof. Wyman, Prof. Baird, 
and others. In these mounds human remains are constantly 
met with, but none which can serve as proof of great antiquity. 
Perhaps the best evidence that these shell mounds are of ancient 
date, is furnished by the facts reported by Prof. Baird, that those 
of Maine contain the bones of the great Auk (Aéca impennis) 
and those of the walrus. Of these the first is supposed to be 
entirely extinct, and both in modern times have been confined to 
higher latitudes. The mounds of the western states, the copper 
mines of Lake Superior, the old oil wells of Pennsylvania, and 
the lead mines of Kentucky, really afford us the only traces of 
human occupation yet found within our territory which have 
a respectable antiquity, and one which can be measured even 
negatively in years. All these traces of the ancient semi-civilised 
people that once inhabited the Mississippi valley, are found 
overgrown by what we term the ‘‘ primeval forest,” in which are 
trees five hundred years old ; and these trees, in some instances, 
are growing on the prostrate trunks of individuals of equal size, 
belonging to a preceding generation. This, then, is the record. 
We can positively assert that the works of the mound builders 
were abandoned and overgrown by forests a thousand years ago ; 
how much before that time we have no means of knowing. We 
may fairly infer that some hundreds of years were consumed in 
the multiplication of this ancient people, in their spread over 
and subjugation of the country they occupied, in the substitution 
of cultivated farms for the pre-existent forest, in the construction 
of towns so numerous as to thickly dot all the surface, in the 
thorough exploration and extensive working of the mineral 
districts and oil fields, in the acquisition of the degree of civilisa- 
tion they attained, in their gradual reduction in numbers to their 
total extinction. In New Mexico, Mexico, Central America, and 
Peru, we have countless monuments of a civilisation generically 
the same throughout this great area, and a civilisation which was 
indigenous to America. For the rise, culmination and decline 
of this civilisation—for it was in its decadence when Columbus 
first discovered America—we must allow two thousand or three 
thousand years. Perhaps they occupied much more time than 
this; but all these changes could hardly have been effected in 
less than two thousand years. Whether there was any relation- 
ship between, the ancient Mexicans and the mound-builders is a 
question yet to be decided. They had ‘this in common, that 
both were sedentary and agricultural ; were miners and builders. 
But the Mexicans and the Incarial race were famous masons, and 
built huge structures of dressed stone which scarcely suffer in 
comparison with. our, finest architectural monuments. The 
mound-builders, on the contrary, build in earth and wood, and 
the structures they raised have little in common, so far as plan is 
concerned, with those of the southern nations. No geographical 
connection has been traced between these ancient civilisations. 
_ The one seems tohave been strictly confined to the Valley of the 
Mississippi, the other to the high table lands lying between the 
Rocky Mountains’ and the Sierra Nevada. In answer to 
inquiries, Prof, Newberry stated that the inscriptions which 
covered ‘the monuments of Central America and Peru, like the 
arrowhead’ characters of Assyria, and the hieroglyphics of Egypt, 
were destined to be read. Indeed, it might be said that many of 
these -inscriptions could now be read, _ But little was to be 
expected, however, in the way of historical facts, from a perfect 
translation of all these records. They were apparently, for the 
most part, local and personal in character, and like the Egyptian 
and Assyrian records, consisted mostly cf religious invocations, 
Jaudation of persons, or celebrations of local and temporary 
pokhtical triumphs, which to us have no special significance or 
value. The mining operations of our ancient Americans were 
so extensive; that most of-the important deposits of copper on 
Lake Superior had been not only discovered, but worked by 
them. The working of the oil wells by the mound-builders had 
not perhaps been noticed’ by others, but Prof, Newberry asserted 
it from observations he had himself made. On the bottom lands 
of Oil Creek, below Titusville, he had, in 1860, noticed that the 
ground in the primeval forest was pitted in a peculiar way, the 
pits two or three feet deep, eight or ten feet in diameter, and 
almost contiguous. These were proved (by excavations made 
preparatory to boring oil wells) to be the remains of ancient 
wells or pits sunk in the alluvial clay, One of these, opened to 
the depth of twenty-seven feet, was cribbed up with timber, and 
contained a ladder like those found in the ancient mines of Lake 
Superior, formed from the trunk of a tree on which branches 
were left projecting six or eight inches. Prof. Newberry had 
subsequently seen similar pits to these, around the oil springs of 
Mecca and Grafton, Ohio, and at Enniskillen, Canada West. 
In the latter locality, a modern oil well cut into the circumference 
of an ancient one, and this was found to be filled with sticks and 
rubbish. A pair of deer’s horns were taken out thirty-six feet 
below the surface. The lead vein in Kentucky, to which reference 
had been made, had been worked by an open cut several hundred 
yards in length. This was now a ditch some feet in depth, with 
a ridge of material thrown out on either side, the whole was 
covered by forest, and trees three feet in diameter were growing 
upon the ridges of rejected rubbish. 
April 11.—The president in the chair. Mr. O. Loew ‘‘ On 
Hydrogenium-Amalgam.” He showed that when zinc-amalgam 
is agitated with a weak solution of bi-chloride of platinum, a 
spongy mass forms upon the surface of the zinc-amalgam, having 
buttery consistence, and strongly resembling in physical cha- 
racters, the well-known ammonium-amalgam. ‘This body he 
considers to be an amalgam of hydrogenium and mercury. To 
prepare it ona large scale, he shakes thoroughly zinc amalgam, 
containing three per cent. of zinc, with an equal volume of a solu- 
tion of bi-chloride of platinum, containing ten per cent. of the 
salt. The mass becomes warm, and must be cooled from time 
to time, by plunging the flask, in which the reaction is carried 
on, into cold water, and also takes on a black colour from the 
finely divided platinum which is reduced. The mixture is then 
thrown into moderately dilute hydrochloric acid, by which the 
excess of zinc and oxychloride formed is dissolved. Unless thus 
treated, the amalgam is rapidly decomposed with evolution of 
hydrogen. The platinum is, for the most part, removed with 
the excess of mercury. The body thus prepared, has the con- 
sistency and appearance of ammonium-amalgam as obtained by 
acting upon anammonium salt with sodium amalgam. At ordi- 
nary temperatures, several days are required for its complete 
decomposition. It possesses the marked reducing power peculiar 
to hydrogenium, reducing ferricyanides to ferrocyanides, per 
salts of iron to proto salts, decolourising permanganate of potas- 
sium, &c. This hydrogenium-amalgam also absorbs ammonia, 
and the resulting body resembles ammonium-amalgam as other- 
wise obtained. Since Graham compared hydrogenium with the 
active modification of oxygen, Mr. Loew proposed to consider the 
following series as parallel :— 
Antozone. Common Oxygen. 
Nascent Hydrogen. Common Hydrogen. 
Ozone. 
Hydrogenium. 
And he further suggests the representing of these three states of 
hydrogen, by formulz in the following manner, 
[H] [H H] [H H] H 
Nascent Hydrogen. Common Hydrogen. Hydrogenium, 
He performed the experiment as described, in a most satisfactory 
manner, producing a large mass of the supposed hydrogenium- 
amalgam. The reading of this paper elicited considerable dis- 
cussion, Dr. JI. Walz, spoke in high terms of Mr. Loew’s 
ingenious experiment, but opposed his theoretical views ; espe- 
cially the comparison of nascent hydrogen and antozone, the 
existence of which he denied. He exhibited the action of bi- 
chromate of potassium and zinc-amalgam when shaken together, 
whereby the former is reduced, and apparently a compound of 
hydrogenium and mercury obtained, which differed in characters 
somewhat from that exhibited by Mr. Loew. Prof. C. A. Joy 
referred to the experiments of Schénbein, which conclusively 
prove, he considered, the existence of Antozone. Schonbein 
agitated zinc-amalgam with water, and examined the solution 
obtained. This did not act upon iodide of potassium and starch, 
until a trace of a proto-salt of iron was added, when imme- 
diately the blue colour of iodide of starch appeared. The use 
of bi-chloride of platinum for assisting the evolution of hydrogen, 
originated with De la Rive. He thought that Mr, Loew had 
