ABSTRACTS FROM ANTHROPOLOGICAL CORRE- 

 SPONDENCE. 



EDITED BY OTIS T. MASON. 



The archaeological work of the Bureau of Ethnology withdraws a 

 great deal of material formerly published under this head. The danger 

 of losing facts in a great mass of current correspondence, however, 

 makes it advisable to publish brief abstracts of letters in this form : 



Baxter, J. — Reports opening a grave on the shores of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, 40 miles from Chatham, IST. B., and finding the skeleton of a 

 large man. The head was covered with a sealskin cap and the feet with 

 moccasins of the same material. There were pieces of canvas and birch 

 bark about the remains, and inclosed within these a piece of Spanish 

 cedar and a short piece of rope, "served," as though it had been a 

 piece of standing rigging. Over the body were three large copper ket- 

 tles, overturned, one over the head, the largest over the body, and the 

 third over the flexed extremities. 



Brown, E. L. — Reports several groups of mounds near Durand, Wis. 

 On the farm of the writer, at the depth of about 6 inches, are found 

 old fire-beds of burnt rock and ashes, pottery, and arrow-heads. In the 

 village of Durand is a group of twelve burial mounds. On the bank of 

 Bear Creek, 2J miles east of Durand, near a grist-mill, is a group of 

 seven mounds in a row, extending north and south. In the town of 

 Nelson, Buffalo County, are several groups of mounds, one hundred 

 and fifty altogether. The mounds are generally located on the river 

 terraces in groups. They are composed of sand and drift, not strati- 

 fied. Several mounds have been explored. On the rocks near Duma- 

 ville, Wis., are figures of canoes and animals. The dead buried in the 

 mounds are in a sitting posture, facing the east. The remains are en- 

 tirely decayed. North of Durand, in Ojalla, two caches have been 

 found, one containing about seventy-five large chipped disks ; the other 

 one hundred, in various stages of completion. Mr. Brown will make 

 further researches for the Smithsonian Institution. 



Burns, Frank. — Reports a cave near Blountsville, Ala., in a cliff of 

 limestone. It was formerly a burial place, as a number of skeletons 

 were found deposited in wooden troughs. The bodies had been wrapped 

 in some sort of matting made of bark. Twelve ornaments of native 

 copper rudely hammered out and two chisels were found there, as weU 

 as sea shells. The cave was dug over during the civil war for the pur- 

 pose of extracting saltpeter. The writer also reports the discovery of 

 a cache of seventeen chipped spear heads in a field near Blountsville. 

 The specimens are said to be beautifully wrought. 



826 



