DR. KOCH’S MISSOURIUM. 147 
have attached a great importance to these natural objects, and I 
think that these figures point to a worship of the sun by the tribes 
which executed them. The clustering of the inscriptions in prom- 
inent places, and especially on and in the vicinity of the rock 
tower at Ereré, seems to me to indicate that these places had 
something of a sacred character and were often resorted to. Many 
of the figures seem to be the capricious daubings of visitors, as, 
for instance, the human faces drawn on angular rock projections. 
Some of the animal forms may have had a sacred character. 
I know of no trace of sun worship among the uncivilized Indians 
of Pará to-day, nor do they make rock paintings or inscriptions. 
The greater part of the Brazilian Indians, such as the Tupis, - 
Botocudos, etc., appear to have had no idea of a God, and no form 
of worship. We have no historical account of the practice of 
sun- worship among the ancient Indians of the Amazonas. In 
the burial stations of Marajó small clay figures occur which ap- 
pear to be idols. The probabilities are, that the tribes anciently 
inhabiting the Amazonas were more advanced in religious ideas 
than those Brazilian Indians of which history gives us an account. 
t 
DR. KOCH’S MISSOURIUM. 
BY P. R. HOY, M. D. 
——10e———— 
In March, 1840, I visited the spot on the Pomme de Terre, 
Benton county, Missouri, where Dr. Koch had recently disinterred 
the skeleton of that large male Mastodon now in the British 
Museum, which the Doctor mounted and named Missourium tetra- 
caulodon. Owen subsequently remounted the specimen and made 
a Mastodon giganteus out of Dr. Koch’s distorted work. 
The excavation was about fifteen feet in diameter and six feet 
deep, half filled with water. I was told by one of the men who 
assisted in the excavation, that they did not get all the bones out, 
as the water was so deep as to interfere materially with their 
work. So TI hired a negro to go into the pit and fish about, while 
I from the bank, felt around with a hoe. In this way we suc- 
ceeded in procuring one molar tooth, two pieces of a tusk, and 
10* ‘ 
