PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 691 



a and &, is 8§ inches long, 3f wide at the cutting edge, 2 inches wide 

 at the top, and nine-sixteenths of an inch thick. It is made of i)ure 

 copper. On one side the salts of the copper have preserved the cloth 

 that lay against it.* The warp and woof, Fig 10 c, are distinctly marked. 

 On the other side of the ax are preserved, in the same manner, feathers 

 over the whole surface. This feather cloth was extensively manufactured 

 by the Eed Indians of two hundred years ago, but is now, like the man- 

 ufacture of pottery, to most tribes a lost art. 



For the manufacture of textile fabrics the aborigines used the inner 

 bark of the mulberry tree {Morus rubra), cedar {Juniperus Virginiana), 

 cypress {Taxodium distichum), red elm (slippery elm) {Ulmusfulva), the 

 bass-wood {Tilia Americana), the papaw {Asimina triloba), and the 

 outer bark of the Southern cane {Arundinaria macrosperma). The 

 Southern Indians used the silk plant {Apocynum canabinum), while the 

 California Indians manufactured their textile tii\)T'\Q,B of Agave Ameri- 

 cana. The natives of North America also wove the hair of the buffalo, 

 the wolf, the dog, the brown lynx, and Virginia opossum {Didelphys 

 Virginianus). 



It is difficult to determine whether the threads on this ax are of bark 

 or wool, though they seem to be the latter. In the Mitchell mound, in 

 Madison County, Illinois, specimens of cloth were found of both ma- 

 terials, while the size of the mound, copper implements, and contents 

 generally, indicated that it was of great antiquity.! In no one of the 

 instances, except in the Mitchell mound, is there any trace of feather 

 cloth. The reverse side of this copper ax is covered with the imprint 

 of feathers. The body, no doubt, was wrapped in a bark mantle, one 

 side of which was covered with feathers in the style in which the In- 

 dians of the Mississippi Valley manufactured feather cloth. 



Out of hundreds of references on the subject the following are selected 

 as probably throwing some light on the manner in which the tenant of 

 this mound was clothed for his final rest. 



Jones' Southern Indians, pp. 84, 85; Hay ward's Tennessee, vol. 11, p. 

 103; Archceologia Americana, vol. 1, j). 303; Bradford's Amer. Antiqui- 

 ties, p. 30. 



Other mound pipes have been found in the vicinity of Naples, and 

 among the number that shown in Fig. 6. 



Of this pipe Dr. Charles Kau says: "It is certainly the finest 

 mound pijje thus far known. I have handled a hundred times the mound 

 pipes of the Squier and Davis collection (now in the Blackmore Museum, 

 Salisbury, England), but none of them equaled the specimen in ques- 

 tion. Not having been exposed to the action of fire like the Ohio pipes, 

 it has suflfei-ed no damage whatever, and is as perfect as on the day 



*' See Jones' ^OMtftem incitans, p. 225; S. S. Lyon, Smithson. Bep., 1870, p. 399; Foster, 

 J'rehistoric Races, p. 223. 



tUpon this point consult Flint Chips, p. 420; Lapham's J«%uitt«»»/ Wiaconnn, p. 47. 



