< yj ETHNOLOGY. 



from twenty to forty feet wide, and for a distance of two and a half 

 miles has been completely worked over by the ancient miner. I have 

 been mining for the last twenty-five years on Lake Superior, but I have 

 never seen anything to compare ^vith this locality for ancient work. 



I am confident that,, when this district is thoroughly mined, discov- 

 eries will be made throwing more light than we now have on the char- 

 acter of the people who did this work. 



In the depression in the outlying trap was found clean lake sand, 

 and the rock thrown out of the pit first was thrown on the sand. There 

 was no sign of vegetable mold between the rock and sand, but over all 

 there was three and a half feet of made soil or decomposed vegetable 

 matter. 



In the pit there are tons of stone and stone-hammers, and a large 

 quantity of ashes and charcoal. 



In one I opened on a transverse vein on the same property, I found 

 the scales of white-fish. At this pit the ancient miner had used large 

 granite bowlders to hold up the hanging ground. These bowlders would 

 weigh from 300 to 400 pounds, and were put in where the modern miner 

 would place timber, to secure the ground. Nearly all the brands and tim- 

 ber we found in the pits were roots and stumps. This, with the fact of 

 their using these large stones for timber, leads me to think that the an- 

 cient miners had used up all the timber in their reach, and consequently 

 could not prosecute mining further. 



There is another peculiarity in the hammers found in these mines — I 

 only found one that was grooved, while on the south shore of the lake 



1 never saw a stone-hammer that was not grooved. 



ANTIQUITIES OF YAZOO COl'XTT, MISSISSIPPI. 



By J. W. C. Smith, of Benton, Miss. 



There is a mound on the Yazoo River, twenty miles below Satartia, 

 worthy of note. It is situated at the foot of a tall bluff, and near the 

 river. At the base it is, perhaps, one hundred and fifty or tw-o hundred 

 feet in diameter, fifty feet high, and flat on top; some fifty or sixty feet 

 across. It evidently is the burial-place of some noted chief, and must 

 have required months to build it, and the nearness to a high bluff pre- 

 cludes the idea of its having been built to escape from water. There 

 are several smaller mounds in the neighborhood. Perhaps some sci- 

 entist at Vicksburgh will explore it for you on application. 



Near Carthage, in Leake County, Mississippi, there is a small branch 

 in which are many articles resembling petrified terrapin or tortoise 

 heads ; and where at one time was found here the genital organs of a 

 man, also in stone. 



