94 ON THE POTTERY OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
smaller figure (natural size) in the cut, illustrated the beak of an- 
other small squid, the Gonatus Fabricii. A beak of this squid 
was presented by Captain Atwood at the same time with that of 
A. dux, and we suppose it may have come from the same sperm 
whale, but there is no statement to that effect. These specimens 
will all be sent to Prof. Steenstrup for accurate determination. 
When his memoir appears we hope to be able to present our read- 
ers with a more satisfactory account of these, until lately almost 
fabulous, monsters of the deep. I may however not be trespassing 
on the kindness of Prof. Steenstrup if I say that I had the pleas- 
ure of examining a squid, perfectly preserved in spirits, with arms 
about twelve feet long; the body as well as I can remember being 
between two and es feet in length, which he had just received 
from Iceland. Its discovery has undoubtedly before this been 
announced in Danish jonrnals. 
We have said nothing of colossal Octopi, or poulpes. We pub- 
lished an account of one, however, in the last number of the Naru- 
RALIST (page 772) which had been found at the Bahamas. The 
daily papers had a notice of one thirty feet in length, seen near 
Newfoundland during the past summer, but much allowance must 
probably be made for the statement. Prof. Brewer, of Yale Col- 
lege, tells me that he has seen them measuring fourteen feet from 
tip to tip of the expanded arms in the San Francisco markets. 
Accounts of colossal species of Octopus are not uncommon. They 
occur in the mid-Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and seem to 
be as large and much more common than the ten-armed squids. 
ON THE POTTERY OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
BY J. W. FOSTER, LL. D. 
—eOo 
In the specimens of pottery which have been recovered from 
the mounds, there is displayed a skill in the selection of the mate- 
rials, and in the moulding of them into artistic forms, which far 
_ surpass the specimens which are characteristic of the Bronze Age 
- of Europe. The commonest forms represent kettles, drinking 
cups, water-jugs, pipes and vases in the nature of sepulchral 
