Literature and Religion of the Hound Builders. 127 



The first one that came to my knowledge was found in a town- 

 ship called Savannah, on the Tennessee river, in the state of Ten- 

 nessee. A mound existed here so broad that a company of cav- 

 alry and all their horses, in the late war, encamped on its summit. 

 Subsequently the men removed their tents from it and systemati- 

 cally dug away the whole structure. A small slab of stone was 

 found with a drawing upon it representing an altar with the body 

 of some animal upon it enveloped in flames, while the sun was 

 depicted above. It evidently represented a sacrifice to the deity 

 residing in that lurainacy. I have not yet succeeded in securing 

 a copy of this stone. 



The second was near Eockford, Illinois. A large mound was 

 examined there, and yielded a small stone of crystalline marble 

 containing a figure of the sun supported as if on a pedestal, with 

 a column of hieroglyphics on either side consisting of twelve char- 

 acters, in all. A fac similie marked No. one, is transmitted with 

 this paper. The left hand column shows at the top a segment of 

 a circle. Next below is a triangle, next a snake, a lizard, and last 

 a flower. The right hand column consists of a sigmoid line, a 

 line like the letter U, a minute cross, head of a rabbit, two objects 

 whose significance I am unable to make out, and a fish. The 

 disk of the sun has a human face drawn on it, and on the fore- 

 head of the face is the disk of a crescent moon, with as much of 

 an imitation of a face on the latter as there was room to portray. 

 It may be remarked here that the Aztecs, according to Prescott, 

 (Conquest of Mexico, vol. 1, p. 122), understood the agency of 

 the moon in producing eclipses, and portrayed these events by 

 drawing a moon on the disk of the sun. This stone, therefore, 

 may be the record of an eclipse. It is not possible yet to translate 

 the twelve hieroglyphic signs upon it. 



The third discovery of this sort also occurred near Eockford. 

 There were hieroglyphics found on some stones excavated from a 

 mound, but I have not yet succeeded in obtaining a copy. 



The fourth inscribed object was an ornament of shell found in 

 a Mound Builder's grave, near East St. Louis. It contained only 

 four characters. 



The fifth discovery was made last month at Davenport, Iowa, 



