ANTHROPOLOGY. 637 



built around a vast court, in the center of which stood a great worship 

 mound. The builders were the Toltecs, identified with the Mayas. 



The fifteenth annual report of the Peabody Museum is chiefly occu- 

 pied with an exhaustive paper by Professor Putnam on American abo- 

 riginal copperr working. Preceding the minute description of the ob- 

 jects severally, the author makes some judicious observations upon 

 copper manufacture which are worth repeating. " In America, outside 

 of Mexico, before the coming of Europeans, there is no evidence, as yet^ 

 that copper was used otherwise than as a substance which could be ham- 

 mered and cut into many desired shapes. In Mexico, Central America, 

 Peru, and Chili, there is no doubt that copper was both cast and ham- 

 mered, and by some nations was also mixed with tin or with gold, and 

 cast in molds; but the difficulty of melting and casting unalloyed copper 

 is far too great to be easily overcome." 



Dr. Charles Eau presented at the American Association a paper uj)ou 

 a stone grave in Illinois containing the skeleton of a Eackapoo Indian, 

 thereby showing the connection of such interment with our modern 

 Indians. The other contributions of Dr. Ran will be found mentioned 

 in the report of Professor Baird, as well as the account of the work of 

 the Bureau of Ethnology, and of the other special collaborators of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



The Museo nacional de Mexico has continued the publication of the 

 Anales, containing papers mentioned in the Bibliography under the 

 titles Barcena, Chavero, Mendoza, Sanchez, Orozco y Berra, and Icaz- 

 balceta. 



Dr. Daniel G. Brinton contributes to the first number of the Ameri- 

 can Antiquarian for the current year a paper on the probable nation- 

 ality of the Mound-Builders, in which the following language occurs: 

 " It would appear that the only resident Indians at the time of the dis- 

 covery who showed any evidence of mound-building comparable to that 

 found in the Ohio Yalley were the Chahta-Muskokee. I believe that 

 the evidence is sufficient to justify us in accepting this race as the con- 

 structors of all those extensive mounds, terraces, platforms, artificial 

 lakes, and circumvallations which are scattered over the Gulf States, 

 Georgia, and Florida." 



Especial mention should be made of the gorgeous work of Reiss and 

 Stiibel upon the necropolis of Ancon, in Peru; of Marquis de NadaiUac's 

 volume entitled "L'Am6rique pr^historique ; " and of M. de Mortillet's 

 " Pr6historique antiquity de I'homme." The last-named work is the ma- 

 turest fruit of a life devoted to archaeology. Some very great improve- 

 ments in the treatment of the subject are introduced, among them the 

 attachment of the author's name to each remarkable discovery. The 



