264 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



then, were these mound-builders, and who the artificers that chiselled these rude 

 stone images, which did not fall down from Jupiter? 



I think after a careful perusal of the above quotations it will be admitted that 

 the writers do not arrive at exactly the same conclusions as Dr. Snyder respecting 

 the connection between the mound-builders and the modern tribes of Indians. 



With respect to the building of burial mounds by the modern Indians, there is 

 no disputing the fact that it has been practiced by some of the tribes down to a 

 comparatively recent date, and I do not know that any archaeologist of repute 

 has ever doubted or denied it. 



E. G. Squier says, "^ " It is certain that the existing tribes of Indians often 

 buried in the ancient tumuli, and occasionally erected mounds." 



I do not think Dr. Snyder arrives at correct conclusions respecting Mr. 

 Squier's report on the Aboriginal Monuments of New York, in the second volume 

 of "Contributions to Knowledge," of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Snyder 

 says: "Mr. Squier describes mounds and earthworks extending from Canada 

 to the Susquehanna which were found to contain ornamental pottery, pipes, 

 stone axes, hammers and discs, and other stone-age iijiplements, identical in 

 shape and materials with similar specimens found by him in the Ohio mounds, 

 and bone-awls and needles, together with iron axes, glass beads, cast copper 

 hatchets, kettles of iron, brass, and copper, and other articles of European man- 

 ufacture." 



I find that Mr. Squier selects only four examples out of all the collection he 

 made from the above mounds as resembling those found in Ohio and these are 

 such that they might have been common to any people who used stone imple- 

 ments. 



Further on Dr. , Snyder says, "The building of these mounds he was 

 forced to assign to the Iroquois within comparatively recent dates; though in 

 every essential particular they were exactly like the older mounds in central 

 Ohio." 



For the sake of comparison I will quote a few paragraphs from the work in 

 question. 



Mr. Squier says, ^ "We have no satisfactory evidence that the race of the, 

 mounds passed over the Alleghanies, the existence therefore of a few tumuli to 

 the east of these mountains, unless in connection with other and extensive works 

 such as seem to have marked every step of the progress of that race, is of little 

 importance, as it will hardly be denied that the existing races of Indians did and 

 do still occasionally construct mounds of small size." 



Also, 2 "The ancient remains of western New York except so far as they 

 throw light upon the system of defence practiced by the aboriginal inhabitants 

 and tend to show that they were to a degree fixed and agricultural in their habits, 



American Archasological Researches, page 135. 



1 Aboriginal Monuments of New York, page 107. 



2 Aboriginal Monuments of New York, page 10. 



