INTERESTING DISCOVERIES IN CLINTON COUNTY, OHIO. 237 
naments, and after years of patient work have published their theory of the mat- 
ter to the world. Other men, with as great learning and ability, have followed 
in their footsteps and evolved other and contrary conclusions from the investiga- 
tion of similar facts; they, in turn, to be followed, year after year, by still others 
with constantly varying opinions, until the manifold theories put forth in regard 
fovthe ‘“entrance”’ and the ‘‘exit” of this extinct race have become a maze 
which leads in every direction, but centers upon no one point. All these theor- 
ists, however, are agreed that were any written characters or hieroglyphics of the 
Mound Builders to be discovered it would contribute in a marvelous degree to- 
ward the clearing up of the mystery. Short’s ‘‘ North Americans of Antiquity,” 
a work published as late as the present year, says: ‘‘No well authenticated 
Mound Builder hieroglyphics have yet come to light.’”? Clinton county is rich 
in remains of the Mound Builders, and our archeologists believe that they will 
yet supply the hiatus necessary to establish the identity and trace the race origin 
of the early rulers of America. More than a year ago Mr. Jonathan Richard- 
son discovered in a mound in this county an engraved tablet-stone and a ‘‘but- 
terfly relic” bearing hieroglypics, both of which were first noticed and described 
in the Cincinnati Commercial. They were afterward photo-lithographed and de- 
scription and engravings issued in pamphlet form. 
Now comes another discovery which is as important as any yet made. Mr. 
Jonah Frazier, a farmer, residing some four miles north of Wilmington, and in 
the vicinity of an old deer ‘‘lick,” while spading in his garden on Friday even- 
ing last, unearthed a stone pipe of curious construction, which he yesterday 
brought in for inspection by your correspondent. The pipe is fashioned from the 
the stone known as Clinton rock, two or three specks of iron pyrites being visi- 
ble, hard as flint and shaped like a rubber bali flattened by compression, its great- 
est diameter being 234 inches and its thickest 13 inches. It is elaborately and 
artistically carved, being really a fine piece of workmanship. Ina circular de- 
pression, filling the space of one of its sides, is a bas-relief (front view) of a hu- 
man face with high cheek bones, wide, straight mouth, flat nose, full lips, low, 
broad forehead, and the entire facial features, indicative of the presence of craft, 
cunning and intelligence struggling for the mastery. It is not the face of an In- 
dian, nor such a one as an Indian could have imagined. On the opposite side 
of the pipe is a hollow, fitted to the ball of the thumb when in position for hold- 
‘ing the pipe. Through one side, and just above where the stem should be in- 
-serted, is drilled a hole, evidently intended for the reception of a string by means 
of which the pipe could be suspended around the neck of its owner, or upon ihe 
wall of his dwelling. On the front of the bowl—being the side farthest from ‘he 
smoker when the pipe is in use—is an oblong sunken space in which is carved 
the outline of a beaver, its head toward the upper part of the bowl. But the 
main point of interest in this relic, and that which gives it its greatest value, con- 
‘sists in a series of hieroglyphics beginning just below the face and extending 
around the under side of the bowl. A quarter of an inch below the circle which 
