86 Canadian Record of Science. 



to the American Ethnological Society, " Of the 22 alpha- 

 betic characters, 4 correspond with the ancient Greek, 4 with 

 the Etruscan, 5 with the old Northern runes, 6 with the 

 ancient G-aelic, *7 with the old Erse, 10 with the Phoenician, 

 14 with the old British," and he also adds that equivalents 

 may be found in the old Hebrew. It is, as some writers 

 have described it, an exceedingly accommodating inscrip- 

 tion. The following readings have been given : — 



By M. Levy Bing : " What thou say est, thou dost impose 

 it, thou shinest in thy impetuous clan, and rapid chamois." 

 By M. Maurice Schwab (1857) : " The chief of emigration 

 who reached these places, has fixed these statutes forever." 

 By M. Oppert: " The grave of one who was assassinated 

 here. May God, to revenge him, strike his murderer, cutting 

 off the hand of his existence." "We can only say of these 

 readings what a Hebrew Babbi said to an indolent student, 

 who in reading a verse in the Psalms in the original, gave 

 the translation of the next verse, " Gentlemen, that is a very 

 free translation." Besides this, other readings have been 

 given, all of which have the advantage that few can con- 

 tradict them. 



In the Scioto valley, where there are many very interest- 

 ing remains of the Mound-builders, there are many burial 

 mounds which have lately been opened. In many of these, 

 the casts of unknown logs are still visible, showing that the 

 dead were placed in a rude vault, which was afterwards cov- 

 ered by soil. One skeleton was found to have round the 

 neck several hundred beads, made mostly of marine shells, 

 others made of the tusks of animals and a few laminae of 

 mica. In the same mound from which this skeleton was 

 taken, the vault gave strong evidence of its having been set 

 on fire during the burial ceremony, — the large quantity of 

 charcoal proving that it was suddenly quenched by the fresh 

 soil heaped upon it. 



If these Mound-builders were Sun-worshippers, as may 

 safely be concluded from tablets and from rock markings, 

 as well as from the fact of their sacred enclosures mostly 

 looking towards the east, where the early rays would fall 

 upon the altar, we may easily account for the fire having a 



