March 2, 1883. 



SCIENCE. 



99 



lery is due to tlie presence and growth of the yeast- 

 fuugus. At the time of the publication of Schloe- 

 sing and Muntz's memoir, it was remarked in corrob- 

 oration of tlieir view, that tradition has taught, that 

 in the days when ' saltpetre plantations ' or ' saltpetre 

 yards ' were worked in Europe, in order to obtain a 

 supply of the nitrate for making gunpowder, pains 

 were taken to use the earth of a yard over and over 

 again, after the nitrate had been leached from it; and 

 that, in order to insure success, when a new yard 

 was to be started, some earth had to be brought from 

 an old yard, and mixed with the new earth, — all of 

 which went to show a recognition of the truth, that 

 something useful for the process of nitrification was 

 contained in the old earth. But the wisdom of the 

 fathers is expressed even more emphatically in the 

 following citation from the ' Diary of Samuel Sewall,' 

 recently published by the Massachusetts historical so- 

 ciety (see ' Sewall papers,' vol. 2, p. 10, of the pre- 

 liminary 'Miscellaneous items'). It appears that 

 in the year 1686 Judge Sewall copied upon the cover 

 of his journal this receipt: — 



" To make a salt-petre bed. All the sward of the ground is to 

 be taken off or trenched in, and the stones to be taken clean out 

 as deep as the trench. Then get the best and richest mould you 

 can, and till up the trench according as you will make it in great- 

 ness — length or depth as you see cause. When the ground is 

 made clean and fitting, turn over the ground and trench it in 

 again, and as you trench it in mix it with strong lime about a 

 tenth or sixth part; and the Sced-Petre, or Mother of Petre, and 

 hen or pigeon's dung as much as you can get, the more the better. 

 And after 'tis trenched in as above, let all the butcher's blood and 

 lees of wine be mixed often with the upper part of the mould 

 about half a foot down, that it be not lost or run away from the 

 bed or bank. Let the bank be made upon rising ground, and a 

 ditch about it, that the water rest not, nor run into the petre- 

 hed; with a dry house over it, to keep it from rain." 



Surely it is something more than a curious coinci- 

 dence that our forefathers should have thus spoken 

 of the ' mother of petre ' as they did habitually of 

 the 'mother of vinegar.' In the face of expressions 

 so distinct as these, it is impossible, as a matter of 

 history, to deny that just conceptions of nitrification 

 and acetification were current long ago. It is, per- 

 haps, the fault of their descendants, rather than of 

 themselves, that this knowledge of our ancestors was 

 not more firmly grasped or sooner formulated with 

 precision. F. H. Stoker. 



Archeological frauds. 



As an illustration of the demand and supply of 

 archeological material, I will call attention to a carved 

 stone representing a naked child about two feet in 

 length, which was said to have been dug up near the 

 Hot Springs in Arkansas. The carving was partly 

 enclosed by a cement, which, it was said, covered the 

 stone when it was found. This was received at the 

 Peabody museum, with its history, apparently well 

 authenticated, describing it as an antique. This 

 piece of carving proved to be a child of the ' Cardiff 

 giant' family. The fraud was unquestionable; and 

 the image was returned to its owner with a full state- 

 ment of the evidence against it, and the request that 

 in the interest of science the object should be de- 

 stroyed. Since then I have heard nothing more of 

 it, and in case it has not been destroyed this notice 

 will serve to put others on their guard. This is, 

 however, but one of the many fraudulent specimens 

 offered for sale ; and we have received a number of 

 pipes, tubes, dishes, ceremonial and other objects, 

 made in Philadelphia, and sold as having been found 

 in such or such a locality. The variety of these arti- 

 cles made by the Philadelphia manufacturer, and the 

 character of the work, are such that many have 

 found then- way into collections in this coitntry, and 

 not a few have supplied the foreign demand for 

 American antiquities. A manufacturer in Indiana 

 confines his attention chiefly to ' mound-builders' 

 pipes,' which are carved from stone, and offered in a 

 systematic method to collectors. In Ohio a large 

 business has been done in the so-called gorgets, cut 

 from blue slate, and in hematite celts. In southern 

 Illinois, a few years .Tgo, many specimens of pottery 

 were made, until the demand fell off so that one 

 manufacturer acknowledged that he was no longer 

 paid for his trouble by their sale. Another man 

 who made this pottery is, I believe, no longer living; 

 but much of his work is still extant. This list might 

 be lengthened; but it is already sufiicient to show 

 that the demand for ' antiquities ' is considerable in 

 this country, and that we are not behind the old 

 world in keeping up the supply. F. W. Putnam. 



Cambridge, Feb. 19. 



AMERIOAN INSTITUTE OF MININa ENGINEERS. 



The American institute of mining engineers, 

 organized in 1871, and consisting at that time 

 of mining and meelianieal engineers, metallur- 

 gists, and chemists, held its second Februaiy 

 meeting in Boston, in 1873, with a membership 

 of about two hundred and fiftj-. Since that 

 time the American chemical societ}^ and the 

 .Society of mechanical engineers have been 

 formed, in a measure limiting the field of the 

 institute to tlie mining engineers proper, the 

 metallurgists, those chemists who are engaged 

 on the problems connected with the profitable 

 extraction and working of metals, and those 

 geologists whose work lies in the same direc- 



tion. But, even with this specialization of 

 the aims of the institute, it has just held its 

 twelfth annual meeting in Boston, Feb. 20-23 ; 

 and the membership at present numbers over 

 twelve hundred. 



The decade which has elapsed between these 

 two meetings has witnessed a most marvellous 

 growth of mining and metallurgical enterprises. 

 It is now very generally recognized that our 

 mineral resources in extent and riclmess rival 

 those of any other countrj'. It is, on the other 

 hand, true that tlie mining-lands of America 

 present obstacles to the extraction and trans- 

 portation of their mineral wealth such as no 



