14 On the Ethnography and Archeology 
Besides these there are other slight modifications of form which 
it is unnecessary to particularize. 
These disks are made of the hardest stones, and wrought with 
admirable symmetry and polish, surpassing any thing we could 
readily conceive of in the humbler arts. of the present Indian 
tribes; and the question arises, whether they are not the works of 
their seemingly extinct progenitors ?—of that people of the same 
race, (but more directly allied to the Toltecans of Mexico,) who 
- appear in former times to have constituted populous and cultivated 
communities throughout the valley of the Mississippi, 4nd in the 
southern and western regions towards the gulf of Mexico, and 
whose last erect and lineal representatives were the ill-fated 
Natchez? °°“) 
Lhave made Sith inquiry as to the localities of these and 
analogous remains, but hitherto with little success. I am assured 
that they have been found in Missouri, perhaps near St. Louis ; 
and in very rare instances in the northern part of Delaware. Dr. 
Ruggles has sent me the plaster model of a small, perforated, but 
irregularly formed stone of this kind, taken Fro an ancient In- 
dian grave at Fall River in Rhode Island; but Dr. Edwin H. 
Davis, of Chilicothe, in a letter recently seiheioed from him, in- 
forms me that he had obtained, during his excavations in that 
vicinity, no less than ‘‘two hundred flint disks in a single mound, 
measuring from three and a half to five inches in diameter, and 
from half an inch to an inch in thickness, of three different forms, 
round, oval and triangular.” These appear, however, to be of a 
different construction and designed for some other use than those 
I have described ; and Dr. Davis himself offers the probable sug- 
gestion, that “they were rude darts blocked out at the quarries 
for easy transportation to the Indian towns.” The same gentle- - 
man speaks of having found other disks formed of a micaceous 
slate, of a dark color and highly polished. These last appear to 
correspond more nearly to those we have indicated in the above 
grams. Set i 
Besides these disks, I have met with a few spheroidal stones, 
about three inches in diameter. One of these accompanies the 
disks from South Carolina, and is marked: with a groove to re- 
ceive the thumb i in throwing “A _A similar but ruder ball is con- 
ained among the articles f y Mr. Atwater‘in the mound near 
Haron, Gite 5 
J 
4 
