\V. H. PRATT. PRKSIDEXT's AXNTJAL ADDRESS. 155 



A rather significant circumstance, perhaps, is the fact that in the 

 same mound with the two tablets first found were the bones of a 

 young child, partially preserved by the contact of a large number — 

 about 300 — copper beads, indicating it to be an important person- 

 age, and that persons of high rank were buried there. 



Some doubts of course have been expressed regarding tlie gen- 

 uineness of the tablets, though not to any great extent by competent 

 and candid arch;«ologists, and we feel no uneasiness on that account- 



The tablets have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution for exam- 

 ination, and were retained there and subjected to the most thorough 

 scrutiny for two months, during wiiieh time the National Academy 

 of Sciences held its meeting there, and the heliotype plates of them 

 were obtained under the direction of Prof. Baird himself. 



They were also exhibited throughout the sessions of the meeting 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at 

 Boston last August. 



Any author or other person who cared to inform himself of the 

 facts, has and has always had ample opportunity to do so, and would 

 at once see that the circumstances of the finding were such as utter- 

 ly to preclude all possibility of fraud or imposition. 



The evidence that they are coeval with the other relics, that is, that 

 they were inhumed with them and before the mound was built, is 

 ample and conclusive and will be so considered by any unbiased man. 



No pre-historic relic ever found has lietter evidence to establish its 

 genuineness than these, and not one suspicious circumstance in con- 

 nection with them has been pointed out, nor can there be. 



We shall confidently hope for and gladly welcome further discov- 

 eries by whomsoever made, tending to throw more light upon this 

 still obscure and intensely interesting problem of our earliest pre- 

 decessors on this continent. 



Among the principal additions to this department of the museum 

 since the last annual report, have been fourteen mound-builders' pipes, 

 three copper axes, and a number of other relics from the mounds, se- 

 cured chiefly by the untiring exertions of our honored associate, the 

 Rev. Mr. Gass, who has spared no time nor labor, and who has recent- 

 ly presented his report of the exploration of 75 mounds within the 

 year, only one fifth of which afforded any relics for the museum, 

 though the investigations are always instructive, and many facts are 

 thus learned. 



Beside his gratuitous labors and personal expenses borne by him- 



