COUNTERFEIT RELICS. 83 



Specimens from one locality should be kept together. For ex- 

 ample, if a shell-heap is examined (in exploration of a shell-heap, 

 it should be done in sections, so that the exact depth at -which each 

 object is found can be noted. Samples should be taken at the top, 

 middle and bottom of the heap, so as to show the actual condition 

 of the material forming it ; and in order to study the fauna of the 

 time the heap was being formed, large collections should be made 

 of the different shells found in it, bones of fish, reptiles, birds and 

 mammals), the articles collected from that particular heap should 

 be kept together not distributed at random throughout a cabinet. 

 The object of this is obvious, from the fact that it shows the 

 exact condition of the people who formed the heaps, the imple- 

 ments they used, the food they ate, and the animals that lived at 

 that period. Specimens from mounds and graves should be treated 

 in a like manner. Members should never explore mounds, graves, 

 or cemeteries of aboriginal man unless they be conducted by, 

 or under the direction of, an Agassiz Association specialist, or 

 other professional archaeologist, who may direct the operation 

 in a proper manner. Much harm has been done in this way by 

 ignorant persons. Never open a motind by the old method of. 

 digging a hole in the centre. The earth should be removed sec- 

 tion by section. We will furnish details to chapters that may 

 desire them in cases where immediate action is necessary, as 

 in exploring a mound that has to be removed or leveled. Pho- 

 tographs of mounds, earthworks, and cemeteries, with careful 

 drawings, surveys, measurements, and maps (of their exact posi- 

 tion) are of great value. If the mounds have been excavated, 

 details should be obtained as to methods pursued by the excava- 

 tors in opening them, the articles found therein, and what became 

 of them. If the possessors thereof will not present them to the 

 Association, to be forwarded to some museum and preserved for 

 the interests of science, photographs should be taken, and endeavors 

 made to induce wealthy citizens to purchase and present them to 

 some museum in good standing. The Peabody Museum of Ar- 

 chaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, Massachusetts, Frederick 

 Ward Putnam, Esq., Professor and Curator, is probably the best 

 conducted museum of this kind in America. If the Indian grave, 

 burial-mound, or cemetery remain intact, the owners of the prop-. 

 erty on which it has been discovered ought to be applied to at 

 once for the sole right to excavate it in the interests of science. 

 This will prevent the wanton destruction of Indian mounds by 

 dealers in (so-called) Indian relics. We earnestly appeal to all 

 the Agassiz Association chapters to defeat, if possible, the dese- 

 cration of Indian mounds, cemeteries, and graves by the vandals 



