75 The Smithsonian Institution 



making, a worthy introduction to a subject which dates an 

 ever-growing interest from that year. If we may judge from 

 results, the fifty years during which " Squier and Davis" 

 have been familiar words with American and foreign archae- 

 ologists, whenever the mound builders are referred to, has 

 well justified the following quotation from a letter of Honor- 

 able George P. Marsh of equal age: "It is fortunate," he says, 

 "for the cause of American archseology that the first sys- 

 tematic attempt at its elucidation (referring to the problem 

 of the mound builders) should have been conceived and 

 executed in so truly philosophical a spirit; and rich as this age 

 already is in antiquarian lore, it has, I think, received few more 

 important contributions. . . . The Smithsonian collections 

 could not begin with a more appropriate or creditable essay." 

 These two works were followed by a supplementary com- 

 munication by Charles Whittlesey and a memoir by I. A. 

 Lapham, both of great value. Lapham described figure 

 mounds from Wisconsin, representing a variety of fanciful 

 forms of animals which had been overlooked by previous 

 travelers. The figures represented men, bears, foxes, birds, 

 reptiles ; the style of mound seemed to have been limited to 

 the plains of the upper Mississippi river. But the memoir is 

 not confined in its treatment to these forms ; it includes like- 

 wise tumuli, embankments, and like structures. 



This memoir presented the subject with accuracy and skill, 

 and had an important influence on the growing interest in 

 the antiquities of the west. Lapham's researches were car- 

 ried on under the direction of the Antiquarian Society of 

 Worcester, Massachusetts, by which his memoir was pre- 

 sented to the Smithsonian Institution for publication, a good 

 example of the harmony with which the Institution has 

 always worked with societies of kindred aims. 



Mr. S. F. Haven, the librarian of the American Antiqua- 



