ON ETHNOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. 907 



AKCIENT EARTH- WORKS IN CHINA. 



By Mark Williams, of Kalgan, China. 



From Kalgan to Yiicho are ancient mounds in cluster on the plain or 

 singly on eminences. These latter would indicate signal towers, while 

 the former would suggest tombs. Tliey are about 30 feet high, circular 

 and oval in shape, and no arrangement can be observed in the clusters. 



At the base of a signal mound by the great wall of Kalgan I found 

 a stone ax. 



The Chinese give no rational explanation of these mounds. I have 

 as yet found no mention of them in ancient records. At Yiicho, 100 miles 

 south of Kalgan, is a cluster of forty mounds ; 4 miles off are ruins of a 

 city wall. Chinese cities have rectangular walls, with towers at short 

 intervals. But this is a circular embankment with no remains of towers. 

 The part of the remaining entrance is unlike th^ gate of a Chinese city. 

 Records state that this was the seat of a Chinese prince who lived B. c. 

 200. In some places the wall is levelled, in other places it is perfect, 

 making an acute angle at the summit. Cultivation has narrowed the 

 bases of the mounds, but superstition prevents their destruction. To 

 one familiar with the works of the mound builders in the Mississippi 

 Valley, the stone ax, the mounds, circular wall, suggest a similar race. 



PLAN FOR AMERICAN ETHNOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. 



By the late Henry R. Schoolcraft. 



[The following programme, though never officially adopted by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, embodies the result of much study of the sub- 

 ject by the distinguished author ; and even after the lapse of forty years 

 possesses sufficient interest and suggestiveness to justify its publica- 

 tion.] 



" Plan for the investigation of American ethnology^ to include the facts 

 derived from other parts of the globe, and the eventual formation of a mu- 

 seum of antiquities and the peculiar fabrics of nations ; and also the collec- 

 tion of a library of the philology of the world, manuscript and printed. 

 Submitted to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, at their 

 first meeting, at Washington, in September, 1846." 



New York, August 22, 1846. 

 Gentlemen: In laying before you the following suggestions, I am 

 governed by the opinion that there is a means of investigation of tbe 

 subject proposed, which possesses general interest as a branch of human 

 knowledge, and cannot but be invested with peculiar force to men of 

 letters dwelling on the western continent. The origin, dispersion, and 



