No. 1.] MISCELLANEOUS. 61 



erected ; inteuse heat being then applied gave consistency to the 

 arched roof, and if sprinkled with sand would cause the vitreous 

 appearance the roof and floor show. The dead, placed in rows, 

 were in a sitting posture with the hands folded, and the face 

 toward some cardinal point of the compass, food in earthen dishes 

 before them, and upon them were hung their ornaments. There 

 is, however, a curious absence of weapons, and the skulls show 

 no sign of violence, though in the neighbouring fields stone 

 hatchets and war clubs as well as flint arrow-heads have been 

 found. The skeletons show no peculiarity of stature, but the 

 crania diff"er widely from the Cree and Ojibway branch of the 

 great Algonquin family now found here. The skull now before 

 me is of average Caucasian size, and the well worn teeth show 

 middle age as well as the nature of the food. The forehead, 

 though somewhat narrow, is neither low nor receding, orbits 

 well rounded, superciliary ridge low, malar bones only moderately 

 developed, zygomatic arches slight, nasal bones prominent, occiput 

 fairly rounded, and in other peculiarities differing from the 

 typical Indian skull of living races. The ornaments consist of 

 neck-laces formed of hollowed tubes of the soft stone used by 

 the present Indians for pipes, and shells variously cut and pier- 

 ced for earrings, some from their size suggesting breast ornaments. 

 These shells are unlike anything found here, and similar ones 

 sent by Hon. Donald Gunn to the Smithsonian Institute were of 

 a kind fouud only on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The 

 pottery, made apparently with clay of this country, was confined 

 to simple forms, and the remains of food found in them were 

 the bones of the beaver or some other small animal and the shells 

 of the present river mollusks. None of this group of mounds 

 seem to have been connected wrth others, and the surface ap- 

 pearance is the same with the exception, of course, that on some 

 large trees are growing. Our own Indians have no traditions at 

 all in regard to them, implements and ornaments are alike strange 

 to them, and the practice of the present and preceding Indians 

 was to dispose of their dead on elevated stages rather than to 

 inter them. 



Whence came they then, these quiet sleepers, who with fleshless 

 palms crossed as in mute expectancy, might have slept on till the 

 resurrection morn but for the curiosity which disturbed their rest ? 

 what has become of this mound building race, who, from the 

 shadow of the Andes to this far north have traversed the conti- 



