August 22, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



151 



rake, and a cylinder of galvanized sheet-iron, 

 thirty inches long by eleven inches in diameter, 

 containing an elongate, tapering strainer, and 

 supported in an iron framework having six 

 runners of round iron at equal distances apart. 

 The mouth is furnished with a short conical 

 strainer of coarse wire netting projecting from 

 the front, and a funnel-shaped collar of sheet- 

 iron opening inwards. This dredge is designed* 

 for collecting the small, unattached forms of 

 marine animals living upon smooth bottoms, 



Fig. 10. — Benedict's rake-dredge 



which are crushed or lost sight of in the ordi- 

 nary dredges and trawls. The rake is intended 

 to give the bottom-materials a thorough stir- 

 ring up, so as to dislodge the animals, which, 

 together with the sediment, come in contact 

 with the nose-piece of the C3 T linder, only those 

 below a certain size being able to pass in. This 

 appliance has proved very effective in collect- 

 ing in perfect condition many delicate species 

 of animals which had previously been seldom 

 obtained in suitable shape for stud} T , and at 

 the recent London fisheries exhibition it elicited 

 much favorable comment from European natu- 

 ralists. Richard Rathbun. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE OHIO MOUNDS. 



The mounds of the Mississippi valley historically con- 

 sidered. By Lucien Carr, assistant curator of 

 the Peabody museum of American archaeology. 

 [From vol. ii. of the Memoirs of the Kentucky geo- 

 logical survey. N. S. Shaler, director.] 1883. 

 109 p. 4°. 



The thesis which Mr. Carr has to defend in 

 this elaborate paper is that the red Indian, as 

 he is known historically, and without implying 

 any lapse from a higher condition of life than 

 he now occupies, was quite capable of building 

 the mounds of the Mississippi valley. As we 

 have no positive proof of what the people were 

 who did build them, and no record of the time 

 of building, except inferentially in some cases 



from the rings of trees, he claims that there is 

 no necessity of supposing them the work of 

 other folk than those found upon the spot by 

 the whites at the first contact. Further, should, 

 by any chance, evidence be found hereafter to 

 fix the so-called mound-builder as another race, 

 there is no ground to believe them to be higher 

 in the social scale than the red Indian of his- 

 toric times. He admits that in size the Ohio 

 mounds, in some cases, exceed those which the 

 Indian is actually known to have built in recent 

 times ; but in his opinion the difference is one 

 of degree, not of kind, and accordingly 

 weighs little in the discussion. To estab- 

 lish his ground, Mr. Carr meets the objec- 

 tions to it historically. It is urged that 

 a people like our modern Indians could 

 not have built the mounds, because they 

 were followers of the chase, and not agri- 

 culturists ; and 

 without being 

 agriculturists 

 the}' could not 

 have supplied 

 the subsistence 

 for the large 

 number of men necessary to erect these mounds. 

 There are two ways of answering this propo- 

 sition. One is b} T asserting that there is no 

 evidence that the building was done in such 

 a way as to require much labor in a short time ; 

 while it may be believed that the labor was 

 extended over a long time, and hence required 

 few workers at any one time. This answer 

 Mr. Carr ignores. The other reply is, that it 

 is an unfounded assumption to affirm that the 

 red Indian was not an agriculturist, when it 

 is susceptible of proof that he not only sup- 

 plied from the fields daily wants, but laid in 

 store for unfruitful years and for barter. This 

 position Mr. Carr abundantly sustains from the 

 older writers. 



The second proposition which he meets sets 

 forth the so-called mound-builders as worship- 

 pers of the sun, and their structures as infer- 

 entially allied with that cult ; while the Indian 

 is not and was not such a worshipper. His 

 answer to this is, that the red Indian is, and 

 particularly was, a sun-worshipper ; and this he 

 establishes satisfactorily from the early chroni- 

 clers. Further, it is a mere assumption, in his 

 opinion, to call a certain class of these mounds 

 religious while there is no proof of it. The 

 truth seems to be, that designations of con- 

 venience have grown to be arguments obscur- 

 ing the question. 



Having thus in two sections of his paper 

 proved that the Indian could have built such 



