ARCHAFJOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 87 



grave, burial-mound, or cemetery remain intact, the owners 

 of the property on which it has been discovered ought to be 

 applied to at once for the sole right to excavate it in the 

 interests of science. This will prevent the wanton destruction 

 of Indian mounds by dealers in (so-called) Indian relics. We 

 earnestly appeal to all the Agassiz Association chapters to 

 defeat, if possible, the desecration of Indian mounds, cemeter- 

 ies, and graves by the vandals referred to. Let our chapters 

 get up entertainments and form a fund for their purchase and 

 presentation. Old and young should respond cheerfully to 

 this suggestion. In this way aboriginal monuments that are 

 fast disappearing before the onward march of civilization can 

 be preserved, at least until a scientific examination can be 

 made of their contents. 



Some day, I hope, the Agassiz Association Museum will be 

 formed, and among its various departments may that of 

 ethnology and archaeology be pushed with vigor. If I am not 

 misinformed you have already dreamed of this. Assuredly 

 some well-filled pockets will aid the great work that you are 

 directing. 



More especially since the publication of "The Swiss ross" 

 do inquiries reach me from the Western States and South 

 America. Many of these are from persons who seem deeply 

 interested in early man, and his descendants who occupy our 

 reservations still wander over certain districts of the far 

 north, or dwell in the forests of South America. Quite fre- 

 quently I have packages forwarded to me from elderly persons 

 for classification and examination. In many cases the speci- 

 mens are supposed to have been found under circumstances 

 that verge on the marvelous. These are generally purchases 

 from unreliable dealers in antiquities, and are not 'finds' made 

 by themselves; hence they are apt to prove counterfeits, 

 which at the present time are made in large quantities 

 throughout the Western and Middle States, I deem it 

 necessary to warn all our chapters against notorious gangs 

 of counterfeiters (of mound specimens) that exist in Ohio, 

 others in Illinois and Kentucky, and last, but not least, against 

 those clumsy 'antiques' that emanate from the MARBLE 

 YARDS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



