864 CONGEESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



proposes only to dedicate a certain sum of money to that special inves- 

 tigation and to continue that investigation. Last year a portion, a 

 very small portion, of the money thus appropriated was used in this 

 way. In no sense does the amendment change existing law. It does 

 not conflict with existing law in any sense. It is simply a dedication 

 of a portion of this appropriation. I trust the gentleman from 

 Georgia will not press his point of order. 



The Chairman. The Clerk will again report the amendment. 



The amendment was again read. 



The Chairman. The Chair does not think this changes existing law, 

 but is in the line of investigation authorized by law. The Chair there- 

 fore overrules the point of order. 



Mr. Keifer. The point of order having been overruled, let me say 

 a word now on the amendment. It might well perhaps be left ordi- 

 narily to the discretion of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 

 to determine how this $25,000 of money should be expended. But 

 that leaves him possibly exposed to trouble with various persons who 

 are employed in making these very important investigations. Last 

 year we gave him but $20,000 for these researches, while this year it 

 is proposed to give $25,000. The amount appropriated last j^ear was 

 not sufficient and therefore this particular matter of investigation was 

 largely neglected. 



I want to call the attention of the committee to the fact that these 

 investigations have to be made in the settled portions of the country 

 east mainly of the Mississippi' River, largely in the Mississippi Valley, 

 but not confined to that. 



There are places where these investigations should go on in North 

 Carolina especially, and in Georgia. In Tennessee there is a very inter 

 esting field for investigation. Arkansas and Texas are full of these 

 mounds, and they are found in the Ohio Valley. Being in the settled 

 portion of the country, they are disappearing. 



Of such importance are they regarded in England and France that 

 those countries are sending here scientific bodies of men to investigate 

 our mounds, these evidences of prehistoric races. They are devoting 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the very thing that we ought to 

 have done long ago. This small sum of money can be used very 

 advantageously during the coming summer in making surveys and 

 investigations, and finally completing a work that has already been 

 commenced that is of very great importance. I would like to have 

 added a great many things that I think are of vast importance on this 

 subject, but I have not time. I hope the committee will not object to 

 giving a portion of the appropriation this special direction. 



Mr. Blount. I think we had better leave this fund where it has 

 been all the while — under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution — 

 leaving the special directions given to it discretionary. There may be 

 investigations more important than the one my friend from Ohio sees 



