Editorial Miscellany. 91 



The value of such details is indicated in the following extract from 

 a letter recently received from Prof. Henry, the distinguished head of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington. 



" It is our object to trace the development of a particular idea, or 

 the use of a given material, over the entire extent of its range, so as 

 to judge of the comparative relationships and affinities of the people 

 in different sections of the country. The concurrent use of a certam 

 material, such as copper, over a wide extent of country, while the 

 material itself is confined to a single locality, has an important bear- 

 ing on the question of the domestic commerce of the aborigines ; while 

 the reproduction, in different materials, of some particular form, over 

 an extended region, indicates, to a certain extent, a common origin, 

 or, at least, a close intercourse." 



The importance of such careful an4 detailed observation pertains 

 to all archaeological inquiry ; but it Ls doubly necessary in the 

 present case, Avhen we consider, what we have before remarked in a 

 similar connection, namely : that the page here presented to our scru- 

 tiny is a palimpsest from which the characters inscribed by later, and 

 perhaps inferior, races, are to be eliminated before we can hope to 

 decipher the record of the true autocthones. 



Every circumstance bearing upon the actual or relative age of 

 remains, is, therefore, of the highest importance. Depth and charac- 

 ter of soil; excavation of ravines; change in line of watercourses; 

 type of mound structures, and theii* position in respect to river-terrace 

 formations ; annular growth of trees ; thickness of vegetable deposits ; 

 material and style of minor relics — all are matters to which the closest 

 observation should be given, together with others which will suggest 

 themselves to the practical archseologist. 



AxciENT Burial Custom, — Prof. E. W. Claypole, of Antioch 

 College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, sends us a brief note of the discovery, 

 in his neighborhood, of a human skeleton, somewhat decayed, in a 

 .gravel bank, about a foot or so beneath the surface, with a sheet of 

 mica covering the face of the skull ; and suggests the inquiry : whether 

 the practice of placing mica over the face was common in burials 

 among the early settlers of Ohio. 



Presumptively, upon the information furnished, the remains are 

 aboriginal — the presence of mica, under similar circumstances, being 

 a feature not uncommon in burials of the ancient and perhaps the 

 more recent aborigines of the United States. The mineral is often 

 discovered in the earth-mounds, and in the vicinity of ancient works 

 in nearly every section where there are remains of the Mound-Build- 



