436 DEPOSITS OF FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



or manufacturers who deposited their wares iu the ground to conceal 

 them until they could dispose of them to advautage. 



In the ''Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" is mentioned a 

 strange class of deposits of stone implements and other objects, differ- 

 ing iu the motive of interment from the simple caches which I have de- 

 scribed. The interest of that valuable work culminates in the chapter 

 devoted to "sacrificial mounds," the arrangement and contents of 

 which exhibit the phme of religious thought attained by the mound- 

 builders. The "altars" of burnt clay j the votive offerings, through fire, 

 of their choicest works iu stone, copper, mica, and shell, doubtless to- 

 gether with many articles of less durable materials which were con- 

 sumed by the intense heat; the cremation of human bodies; the heaping 

 of earth upon the glowing mass; and the introduction of strata of sand 

 in the enveloping tumulus, with the outward covering of coarse gravel, 

 together constitute a record wonderful and unparalleled. Certainly the 

 most plausible solution of this interesting problem rests in the view 

 ascribing the origin of this class of monuments to ideas of propitiation 

 or devotional fanaticism. In either case we feel tolerably certain of the 

 fact that the inclosures of the so-called sacrificial mounds were intended 

 by their constructors to be final. We have here no stores of hidden 

 goods to be withdrawn at pleasure, for use or traffic, but a deposit of 

 objects made in accordance with some superstitious rite or religious no- 

 tion, and designed to remain there undisturbed to the end of time. 



Associated with the sacred mounds which covered the burnt offerings, 

 and in the same inclosure, Squier and Davis, (page 158, I. c.) describe 

 one which contained no burnt altar, but in the place of it a great num- 

 ber of curiously-wrought disks of black flint, which appeared to have 

 been buried without the accompaniment of fire, but with the same i)re- 

 cision, and covered by the same strata of sand and outward layer of 

 gravel as were the clay altars of the other mounds with their treasures 

 of polished implements, utensils, and ornaments. The account given by 

 Mr. Squier of this deposit, on page 158, "Ancient Monuments," &c., is 

 as follows: "Another singular mound, of somewhat anomalous charac- 

 ter, of which a section is herewith given, occurred in the same inclosure 

 with the above. It is remarkable as being very broad and flat, meas- 

 uring at least 80 feet in diameter by G or 7 in height. It has two sand 

 strata, but instead of an altar there are two layers of disks chipped out 

 of horustoue, some nearly round, others in the form of spear-heads. 

 They are of various sizes, but are for the most part about 6 inches long 

 by 4 wide, and three-quarters of an inch or an inch in thickness. They 

 are placed side by side, a little inclining, and one layer resting imme- 

 diately on the other. Out of au excavation G feet long by 4 wid(3 not 

 far from six hundred were thrown. The deposit extends beyond the 

 limits of the excavation on every side. Supposing it to be 13 feet 

 square, (and it may be 20 or 30,) we have not far from four thousand of 

 these disks deposited here. If they were thus placed as an offering, we 



