124 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



Stones which form them of such size and weight, that considerable 

 speculation has arisen as to how these primitive men with so small a 

 knowledge of mechanics were able to put them in the positions in 

 which they are formed. The large chambers formed the last resting 

 place of numerous bodies, and the corpses, in order to occupy as 

 small a space as possible, were deposited in a sitting or contracted 

 position, surrounded by the articles their friends deemed necessary 

 to bury with them. 



Caves were also used as burying places. In 1862 Dr. Noulet 

 visited the cave I'Herm, and along with the remains of about thirty 

 human skeletons found amongst other things, polished axes of Jade, 

 a few necklace beads and a ring of bronze. 



In many of the dolmens have been found serpentine pendants, 

 necklace beads of the same materials, of slate, chalk, alabaster, jet, 

 amber, a kind of turquoise and several kinds of shells. Discs made 

 of the upper part of the Cardium and perforated for stringing. The 

 dolmens also contain funeral urns, drinking cups and vases of toler- 

 ably fine clay, occasionally elegant, though not very varied in form. 

 M. Cartailhac discovered in some of the dolmans in the department 

 of Gard and Aveyron, red amber. Carved flints have been found in 

 Elba, where that mineral does not exist in a natural state; arrows made 

 of the black obsidian of Sardinia have been found in the same island, 

 and also in Pianosa. A jade axe was found at Pauilhac, in the 

 department of Gers, augite of Anevergu has been found in Brittany, 

 and the green turquoise of Brittany has been discovered in several 

 dolmens in the south of France. All these articles, of which the 

 rough material is foreign to the country where they are found, prove 

 that the articles must have been carried to the positions in which 

 they have been discovered, by the agency of man, and that the men 

 of the period had widely spread commercial relations with each 

 other. 



II. — EVIDENCES IN AMERICA. 



We now turn to the new world for further proof of man's agency 

 in carrying articles of commercial value for long distances. In the 

 new world as well as the old, we are indebted in a great measure to 

 the ancient custom of burying with the dead man his arms, orna- 

 ments and other personalities. In the mounds of Scioto and through- 



I 



