PRE-HISTORIC YANKEES 657 
jects which are not peculiar, alone, to the Mound builders. For it must be 
known that the ingenuity of man, in arriving at the earliest inventions, pursued 
the same course, and reached the same goal amongst every race on the face of 
the earth. Just as art, up to a certain stage, passes through identical forms and 
is expressed through similar artifices wherever the artistic impulse is generated, 
so invention, in its primitive stages, was forced to proceed in the same way to 
reach the same conclusion — the manufacture of the most necessary implements 
and utensils from the commonest or most easily managed materials. 
The relics of mound-builder art and industry include articles of metal, stone, 
earthen-ware, horn, bone and shell. Besides articles which are known to have 
been useful, or ornamental, there are many objects whose use is not at all obvious. 
It was thought for a long time that the Mound-builders were ignorant of the arts 
of casting, welding and alloying metal; but a careful and intelligent scrutiny of 
their metallic relics has shown that they were at least acquainted with a method 
of casting. While large numbers of implements and weapons have been found 
fashioned from copper, the most common use to which this metal and others was 
put, was in the manufacture of ornaments, such as rings, gorgets, medals, brace- 
lets, beads and many other problematical articles — some of which it is conjectured 
were used as money. As gentlemen nowadays wear on their watch-guards, or 
fobs, miniature utensils, weapons, etc., so the Mound-builder bore on his person 
small models of objects of utility, or defense, either as ornaments, or as badges 
of his avocation. Several mounds have been opened which produced amulets 
so cunningly wrapped in silver that the work could scarcely be distinguished 
from plating. In southern localities, the mounds have produced gold beads 
and other curious articles in the same metal, which by some are thought to be 
coins. 
The pottery of the Mound-builders was a production of superior mechanical 
and artistic type. Specimens can be collected which may not be distinguished 
from the work of primitive Egyptian, Mesopotamian or even Greek artists. The 
material is usually a pure clay, containing in some instances a slight admixture 
of pulverized quartz, or colored flakes of mica, though a black earth was occa- 
sionally used, evidently of artificial composition. Notwithstanding the great 
regularity of form and the beauty of finish of their pottery, there are no traces 
of the use of the potter's-wheel ; and glazing, or vitrification, was rarely attempted. 
The decorations on pottery include animal forms, arabesques, geometrical figures, 
and in a few cases, the human form and features. These decorations were usu- 
ally incised with sharp instruments. Besides weapons and knives, pipes are the 
most abundant of the articles exhumed from the mounds; and it is upon these 
objects that the Mound-builder expended his highest art. Instead of the rude 
monstrosities which delight the savage artist, the delineations upon these pipes 
represent, with accuracy and taste, objects in the various kingdoms of nature. 
Among forms truthfully drawn may be mentioned the elephant pipe of Iowa, and 
others which represent animals and birds unknown to the temperate zone. The 
material of these pipes is usually a hard red porphyry. 
