PEET ON SKULLS AND SKELETONS FOUND IN OHIO. 139 



limestone which here comes to the surface. The bed has been recently 

 excavated by the C, C. & I. R. R. for ballast for their road bed. The 

 bank is within a stone's throw of the depot at Columbia Station, and in 

 full sight from the passing cars. On the summit there is at present a 

 cottage and a field, but no forest. 



In the gravel there were found a large number of skeletons and skulls, 

 some of which I have had the opportunity of examining. The pit in 

 which these skeletons were found was an irregular cavity situated not 

 far from the eastern side of the bluff, and on its summit. The skeletons 

 were situated near the surface, from two to four feet below it, and were 

 found in a variety of attitudes, but the majority of them in a sitting pos- 

 ture. Xo careful examination of the spot or of the remains has been 

 made, and no relics have been collected as accompanying them. 



The most of the skulls have crumbled so that they can not serve any 

 purpose in discovering the race connection of the people there buried. 

 Those which have been preserved are now scattered, some of them in the 

 cabinet of Delaware College, five in the possession of one of the pro- 

 fessors of Wittemberg College, Springfield, one in the office of the Spring, 

 field Bepublican, and others with various physicians and private individ- 

 uals. 



The peculiarity of the skulls to which I desire to call your attention, is 

 the remarkable orthocephalic character. Dr. S. G. Morton's collection 

 has several skulls which liave been marked " mound builders." They 

 are all distinguished by their peculiar straightness in the occipital pro- 

 tuberance, the height in their frontal sinus, and the elevation of the 

 coronal suture. The contrast between them and the dolicocephalic char- 

 acter of certain skulls, and the brachiocephalic nature of others is very 

 marked. In this collection, however, the peculiarity is much more dis- 

 tinctive. 



Professor Schofler, of Wittemberg College has in his possession, a 

 skull taken from the sand upon the island of Oahu in the Pacific Ocean. 

 The prognathic character of this skull contrasts strongly with the skulls 

 from this collection, taken from the gravel beds, in which the lower maxil- 

 laries are unusually delicate and small, the teeth inserted in a straight line, 

 and closely fitting. These are as good specimens of the typical mound 

 builders of the Mortttn classification as I have been able to discover. 

 They contrast with a collection recently exhumed from the neighborhood 

 of Elyria, on the Black River, about three miles from Lake Erie, and now 

 in the possession of the Northern Ohio Historical Society. They are also 

 different from others which were taken out of an ancient burying-ground 

 in Ashtabula, on the banks of Lake Erie. 



The point of inquiry is, however, how we can determine their race 

 affinity by their shape and peculiarities. These skulls were found in a 

 gravel bed, in a sitting posture, both characteristic of the burial of the 

 later Indians. No mound exists and no other sign has been discovered 

 of their being mound builders. On the other hand, the narrow, dolico- 



