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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



bagoes and Chippewas. They are made by forming a skeleton structure of 

 saplings, which constitute a rectangular framework with a cylindrical roof, 

 and the whole is covered with sheets of birch bark, tied fast to the saplings 

 with withes of bark. Close around the foot of the interior walls are 

 raised platforms about six feet wide and six inches high — upon these the 

 inmates sleep. The Indian mothers have posts driven in the ground, to 

 which are swung hammocks for their babies. Fires for warmth and for 

 cooking are built near the center of the room, and a hole in the roof allows 

 the exit of the smoke. 



5. The conical tent dwellings of our nomadic Indians are formed of 

 lodge poles — their smaller ends meeting together for the vertex of the 

 cone. Their but-ends are arranged on a circle of from 10 to 15 feet diameter. 

 The exterior is covered with skins of wild animals, from which the hair 

 has been removed. 



The door is changed to the leeward, so as to avoid the cold winds and 

 driving rain or snow. A chimney-hole is left at the top. The fire, with 

 a tripod to hold the meat pot, is located in the center. 



Some lodges, as among the Comanches, are thatched with wild grass. 



6. Indians, such as our Digger Indians, and war parties, use whatever 

 they find available for the purpose of shelter; old roots and limbs of trees 

 are twisted together, forming a dome-shaped structure. Caves are scooped 

 out of bluff clay banks. 



The Indians of New Mexico frequently erect circular walls of rough 

 stone, which are sometimes covered with boughs, or logs or skins; here the 

 wily savages can lurk and watch for their enemies, spying from between 

 the stones, which to the passer-by look like a simple pile of rough rocks. 



The Mound Builders, in regard to their architectural attainments, I 

 would place between the Pueblo Indian who builds his three-story houses 

 of adobes, and the Mandan Indian who builds his circular, mound-like 

 dwelling of wooden posts with clay-covered roof. 



As regards the vast mounds erected by the Mound Builders, they were 

 superior in the grandeur of their monumental structures to either the 

 Pueblo Indian or the Mandan, as is shown by the great mound at Cahokio, 

 111., which contains twenty million cubic feet of earth. 



Whether I am right or wrong in my conjectures, I hope, at all events, 

 that this attempt to classify the works of our Indians may awaken interest 

 and inquiry in the minds of others, who may be induced to carry out the 

 needful investigations in regard to the ethnology and archaeology of the 

 Pueblo Indians. 



