g2 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
nent, emphatically asserts that it is as well defined a formation as 
the Devonian or any other. 
MOUND-BUILDERS AND INDIAN RELICS. 
The systematic exploration of the Mound-builders’ remains, by 
the United States Survey, has led to the conclusion that they were 
erected by the ancestors of the Red Man. This decision is 
undoubtedly satisfactory to Professor Lapham and a few of us who 
shared his views. It is amusing to reflect how slowly light dawned 
on this long debated matter. Dr. S. Peet, the editor of Zhe Amert- 
can Antiquarian, Chicago, in an early paper, considers it absurd to 
suppose that the Indians—for instance, Dakotas, Cherokees, etc.,— 
were the Mound-builders, or that they were descended from them. 
Then later on follows the true conclusion, obtained apparently from 
more reliable data, that the Mound-builders were changed to the 
Indian merely by contact with the white man. Here we have no 
attempt to minimize the original mistake. 
The Burial Mounds in the Northwest Territory, near Rainy 
River, appear to be more ancient than many opened in the United 
States. Mr. D. Young made a cutting into the one in which Dr. 
Bryce had previously obtained an earthenware vase. He found, it 
is said, the form of a man in a sitting position, with face towards 
the east, pieces of pottery beside him, as well as a large granite 
spear-head. The Winnipeg Pree Press adds that Mr. Crowe also 
opened a trench in this Mound, in which was found a body ina 
like position, encased in birch bark. Unfortunately it was not stated » 
whether the incision was made through the summit or not, and 
the United States explorers inform us that it is quite a common 
custom still for tribes of the Aborigines to inter their dead in such 
places. 
A smaller Mound coniained a skull and bones, with two vases, 
all of which fell in pieces when touched. Professor A. Lawson, an 
officer of the Canadian Geological Survey, found some copper beads 
and vessels, with three vases like the first one found by Mr. Bryce. 
Unfortunately the writer does not state whether the former was of 
native or “white men’s” manufacture. I have seen a vase from an 
ossuary at the Beach which had been roughly hammered out of a 
sheet of Lake Superior copper. The same cemetery also contained 
