HKNSHAW.] MANATEE. 125 



obvious disadvautages, since it places tbe work of men who were in, 

 at best, but a semi-civilized condition on a much higher plane than 

 other facts would seem to justify. It may be urged, as the writer in- 

 deed believes, that the accuracy sufBcient for the specific identification 

 of these carvings is not to be expected of men in the state of culture 

 the Mound-Builders are generally supposed to have attained. To which 

 answer may be made that it is precisely on the supposition that the 

 carvings were accurate copies from nature that the theories respecting 

 them have been promulgated by archaeologists. On no other supposi- 

 tion could such theories have been advanced. So accurate indeed have 

 they been deemed that they have been directly compared with the work 

 of modern artists, as will be noticed hereafter. Hence the method here 

 adopted in their study seems to be not only the best, but the only one 

 likely to produce definite results. 



If it be found that there are good reasons for pronouncing the carv. 

 ings not to be accurate copies from nature, and of a lower artistic 

 standard than has been su])posed, it will remain for the archseologist 

 to determine how far their uulikeness to the animals they have been 

 supposed to represent can be attributed to shortcomings naturally per- 

 taining to barbaric art. If he choose to assume that they were really 

 intended as imitations, although in many particulars unlike the animals 

 he wishes to believe them to represent, and that they are as close copies 

 as can be expected from sculptors not possessed of skill adequate to 

 carry out their rude conceptions, he will practically have abandoned the 

 position taken by many prominent archaeologists with respect to the 

 mound sculptors' skill, and will be forced to accord them a position on 

 the plane of art not superior to the one occupied by the North Ameri- 

 can Indians. If it should prove that but a small minority of the carv- 

 ings can be specifically identified, owing to inaccuracies and to their 

 general resemblance, he may indeed go even further and conclude that 

 they form a very unsafe basis for deductions that owe their very exist- 

 ence to assumed accurate imitation. 



MANATEE. 



In 1848 Squier and Davis published their great work on the Mounds 

 of the Mississippi Valley. The skill and zeal with which these gentle- 

 men prosecuted their researches in the field, and the ability and fidelity 

 which mark the presentation of their results to the public are suffi- 

 ciently attested l)y the fact that this volume has proved alike the mine 

 from which subsequent writers have drawn their most imjjortant facts, 

 and the chief inspiration for the vast amount of woik in the same direc- 

 tion since undertaken. 



On pages 251 and 252 of the above-mentioned work appear figures of 

 an animal which is there called "Lamantiu, Manitus, or Sea Cow," con- 



