nion, that answers these requirements is sulphurous
acid. This subject is a very important one. If the utilization of heat
could be carried to 3 per cent., as in most machines, it might be
possible to make ice cheaper in New York than to gather, store, and
transport it.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

Some months ago the telegraph announced that a Congress of Americanistes
had met in Nancy in France, and few people in this country could imagine
who the congressmen were or whether they were of this country. It was,
in fact, the meeting of a society, composed chiefly of Europeans, which
means to prosecute studies in the history, language, and character of
American aborigines. This is a laudable work. America probably offers
the most important field for ethnological study in the world. The great
extent of her two continents gave the freest scope for the complete
development of whatever capacity for civilization her people had; and
yet savagism continued here for many centuries after it had ceased in
Europe. Thus the student in going back three hundred years can penetrate
the past as far in this country as he can reach in Europe by pursuing
his inquiries back for two to three thousand years. Under ordinary
circumstances this fact would make American history much easier to study
than those of Europe where the remnants left by the savage tribes are
dimmed by an extraordinary progress or covered by the debris of
centuries of movement. But the truth is it is about as easy to learn the
habits of the ancient Britons as those of the American tribes, even the
most civilized, five centuries ago. This is partly due to the wanton
destruction of valuable records by the early conquerors and partly to
the prepossession that most men, even able ones, seem to be shackled
with; namely, that the origin of America's former inhabitants is to be
sought in some people of Asia. If they would leave that question for the
twentieth century to decide, and begin a painstaking inquiry into what
was going on in this country before its discovery, ask not _who_, but
what sort of men inhabited it, their habits and their relations, the
gentlemen who compose this society of Americanistes would probably reach
valuable results. There is plenty to occupy them. If they do not want to
grapple at once such a knotty subject as the relation of the Mound
Builders to the existing tribes, let them explore Spain for relics of
the Aztecs. It is highly probable that reco