18 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



of the ancestral people of Denmark. Formerly, he observed, 

 the restoration and care of Danish antiquities were governed 

 by a rude and uncertain system, through which local authori- 

 ties were permitted to indulge their antiquarian taste in re- 

 storing architectural and other remains. This law, however, 

 being subject to abuse, the Crown took entire possession of 

 all such national monuments. 



Mention was made of the unjustifiable destruction of the 

 unique mound at Circleville, Ohio ; the Kahokia mound, 

 near St. Louis, Missouri, and other mounds in the valley of 

 the Mississippi. He recommended and strongly urged the 

 society to submit a memorial to Congress for the purpose of 

 arresting the vandalism exhibited in the needless destruc- 

 tion of our prehistoric remains. 



The chairman said that Mr. Mason's suggestion met with 

 his hearty approval, and thought that the society ought to 

 prepare a memorial on the subject and submit the same at 

 an early date to the National Legislature. 



Mr. Reynolds gave a brief resume of his summer's re- 

 search among the aboriginal remains on the lower waters of 

 the Potomac. His explorations commenced in the shell-beds 

 of King George's County, Virginia. Thence he crossed 

 to Charles County, Maryland, and carefully examined 

 the stupendous shell-heap and mound at the confluence of 

 Pope's Creek and the Potomac. Subsequently he visited the 

 site of an ancient Indian town near Centreville, in St. Mary's 

 County, on the headquarters of the Wicomoco River. Here 

 were found pestles, grooved axes, arrows, knives, spears, 

 cylindrical stone beads, Venetian polychrome beads, and 

 several spheroidal stones quite symmetrical, and found hith- 

 erto only on the Pacific Coast. During this and a subse- 

 quent visit the speaker succeeded in discovering many shell- 

 heaps between Allen's Fresh and the mouth of the Wicomoco 

 River. 



