| 1876.] An Ancient Sceptre. 673 
as they pour aqueous vapor into dry air, as they demand plenty 
of light and air, and on this account many a room, otherwise dark 
and unwholesome, is well lighted and aired. One of the most 
powerful and important influences of cultivated plants yet re- 
tans to be noticed. Thrifty plants are always beautiful, and 
their growth and development always instructive and interest- 
ak and the constant presence of such objects in our homes is 
obviously of very great value. We learn to love a favorite plant, 
| and its influence makes our lives gentler and less gross and ma- 
terial ; we may not always appreciate this effect, but it is ever 
acting and ever powerful. Hence, were there no appreciable phys- 
ical good to come from the groups of plants that are so com- 
monly seen in our windows, this moral benefit should make us 
encourage in every way their cultivation, and rejoice that it is 
already so general. 
AN ANCIENT SCEPTRE. 
| BY C. C. ABBOTT M. D. 
HILE the Indians were in undisturbed possession not only 
of the Atlantic coast of North America, but of a great part, 
if not the whole, of the interior, they were not politically one 
people, but divided into many tribes, some of these again being 
in league, as the Iroquois “nation.” These political divisions 
_ ind subdivisions indicate necessarily the prevalence of rank, an 
i the authority of certain individuals over large and small commu- 
nities; this again leads to the necessity of badges, or insignia of 
; | Now among the many relics of the red man that we 
: ASA from our fields there occur some spec 
=% veritable puzzles, were it not that we do know 
the past history of the Indians. Among these peculiar forms is 
that called here a sceptre (Figure 60). These vary much in out- 
®, yet preserve sufficient uniformity to warrant our classifying 
™ as one form. 
Sa many archeological works, and shorter essays On the relics 
_ *Creumscribed locality, this exclusively North American pat- 
? rm which for many reasons I 
for there has yet to be dis- 
adapted to cutting any sub- 
], it is a knife for skinning 
stone implements 
be knives, hatchets, 
imens which would 
something of 
Miere to be entirely inapplicable ; 
a single specimen that is 
ĉe as hard as wood. If any too 
