686 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



reluctantly postponed. The largest mound of the g^oup, No. 1, is 20 feet 

 high, and unex])lored, as are the remainder of the group not mentioned. 



In mound No. 8, about 7 or 8 feet below the surface we found two 

 skeletons, apparently an intrusive burial. With one were some arrow- 

 points and a piece of plumbago nearly an inch square. 'With the other 

 skeleton was an earthen vessel broken and crushed. 



There are many mounds on the bluff adjacent to the group in the 

 bottom. They are comijosed of earth and flat stones, and from one of 

 them were obtained several perfect skulls, two of them very interesting 

 on account of their peculiar shape, one broad and flat, the other narrow 

 and long. From this mound was also obtained a fine piece of pottery 

 in good preservation and perfect, excepting a small piece broken from 

 the rim by the spade. It is different from any hitherto found. The 

 vessel is of a dark, nearly black color, and seems to have been burned. 

 It contained the inevitable spoon of shell from the adjacent stream. 

 Near the vessel were secured flint implements, such as arrow-points, 

 scrapers, bunts, knives, &c. The skull was broken in many pieces and 

 beyond recovery. The flint and shell-spoon on one side have a siliceous, 

 stony crust. This incrustation is also on the inside of the earthen vessel. 

 From the fields in this vicinity were obtained a number of stone imple- 

 ments. 



ABORIGINAL EEMAINS NEAR NAPLES, ILL. 

 By John G. Henderson, of Winchester, III. 



A nnmber of years ago Dr. Clark Roberts, of Winchester, 111., had 

 in his possession some singular pipes, which upon examination proved 

 to be relics of the mound-builders. This, however, is a rather unfor- 

 tunate title, as the history of nearly all savage races shows them to have 

 been mound-builders. The same locality, by disease, famine, emigration, 

 or war, may have been depopulated and again repeopled by other races, 

 each of which in its turn may have erected mounds for religious pur- 

 poses, as sites for temples or dwellings, points of observation or monu- 

 ments over dead heroes. The word mound-builder, therefore, is calcu- 

 lated to lead to error by the implication that the habit of mound-build- 

 ing was peculiar to one prehistoric race, and that all the mounds of the 

 great valley of the Mississippi are relics of one lost and forgotten people- 

 In this paper the term moundhuilder is applied to no particular race or 

 nation, but to those who in ancient times occupied the Mississippi Valley, 

 and there erected earthworks of any kind. 



As the bulk of all that is known of the ancient inhabitants of this 

 valley, especially of their curious and beautiful pipe-sculpture, was ob- 

 tained by Squier and Davis from the mounds of Ohio, the importance of 

 the discovery of similar articles on the banks of the Illinois River, the 

 ancient Houkiki of the Algonkins, was fully appreciated by the writer, 



