23O TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Baldwin asks, "What but time could have caused these skele- 

 tons to dissolve and become as dust, as all the circumstances 

 attending their burial were unusually favorable to their preserva- 

 tion? The earth around them has been invariably found to be 

 wonderfully compact and dry." The condition of the bones can- 

 not always be used as an accurate measurement of time, as here 

 were remains found surrounded by very unfavorable circumstan- 

 ces for their preservation. 



Squier and Davis claim to have found a skull belonging incon- 

 testably to the Mound Builders taken from a mound situated in 

 the Scotia Valley, four miles below Chilicothe ; but Foster says 

 (p. 291), "Any comparative anatomist on referring to their plate 

 will instantly recognize it as of the Indian type." Foster says 

 that our knowledge of the Mound Builders' crania is exceedingly 

 scant, as we have found but few specimens which were incontest- 

 ably of that race. In regard to the bones I disinterred there can 

 be no question ; the surrounding circumstances proved them to 

 belong to that race beyond a doubt ; the positions of the skele- 

 tons, and pottery, and other contents of the mound, clearly prove 

 they could belong to no other race. 



The work upon the various vessels made of pottery would in- 

 dicate that the Mound Builders had attained a high degree of 

 skill in the plastic arts, and this race must have been far in 

 advance of those living in the Stone and even Bronze Age of Eu- 

 rope, as Sir John Lubbock says that "few of the British sepul- 

 chral urns belonging to the ante-Roman times have upon them 

 any curve lines. Representations of animals and plants are also 

 wanting. They are even absent from all articles belonging to 

 Bronze Age in Switzerland, and I might also say in Western 

 Europe generally, while ornaments of carved and spiral lines are 

 eminently characteristic of this period. The ornamental ideas 

 of the Stone Age, on the other hand, are confined, so far as we 

 know, to compositions of straight lines, and the idea of a curve 

 line scarcely seems to have occurred to them. The most elegant 

 ornaments on their vases are- impressions made by the finger- 

 nail, or by a cord wound around the soft clay." — {Prehistoric 

 Times, p. 257.) 



The Mound Builders were not content with straight lines : here 

 are over 20 specimens taken from this mound, and you can see 



