Bimana. MAMMALIA. Bimana. 
was carefully investigated. In July, 1859, Prof. 
Holmes, of Charleston, S. C., described in the pages 
of the Proceeding!) of the Philadelphia Amdemy of 
Natural Sciences, the occurrence of fragments of 
pottery, in connection with the bones of the Masto- 
don and IMegatherium, on the banks of the Ashley 
River, S. 0. The specimens of pottery, as well as the 
bones of the great Mammals, are now in the American 
^^useum, Central Park, H. Y., and form a part of 
the valuable “ Holmes Collection,” lately purchased 
by the trustees of the Museum. The plain on which 
rests the city of New Orleans, says Dr. Dowler, rises 
only nine feet above the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Excavations are made <at times below this level, when 
successive forests of Cypress trees are exposed. IVhen 
the foundations for the gas-works were laid, it had 
been necessary to cut through four of the buried for- 
ests. At a depth of sixteen feet the workmen found 
burnt wood and the skeleton of a IMan, lying be- 
neath the roots of a Cypress tree of the fourth forest 
level. The cranium was like that of the aboriginal 
American race. Cypress trees, ten feet in diameter, 
were found in the lowest forest level, beneath which 
these bones reposed. In 1848, Count Pourtales dis- 
cerned a human jaw and other remains, in a fresh- 
water sandstone on the shore of Lake Monroe, Fla., 
associated with fresh-water shells of species still liv- 
ing in the lake. No date can be assigned to the 
formation of that deposit, from present observation 
at least. 
At a time not far distant, our knowledge of these 
remarkable peoples, the mound-builders, was restricted 
to a very small number of facts, derived from the de- 
sultory searchings of the curious ; and as no fairly 
scientific estimate had been brought to bear upon 
the few items of information thus derived, we had 
erroneously been led to believe that the few crania 
exhumed from the Western and Southern mounds, 
were nothing more than those of the existing race of 
Indian, or those of that type. The fact, also, that 
silver crosses and iron implements, which showed evi- 
dence of modern manufacture, were found in close 
contact with the human remains that were reported 
as exhumed from the mounds, had the effect to induce 
the belief, among some enquirers, that a higher state 
of civilization should be accoi’ded the builders. On 
the other hand, it was an evidence to others that 
there had not existed any other people, save the 
present race of Red Men, and that the modern-built 
objects were obtained by the usual methods, many 
years since, when the Indians of the Eastern and 
Middle States came in contact with the Jesuit priests 
of Canada. No doubt a portion of the latter is quite 
true, and it is quite true that numerous crania of the 
present type of North American Indians have been 
exhumed from the various tumuli, both of the South- 
ern States and those of the Western. It is also true, 
however, thanks to the industry of some of onv snvans, 
that crania of a wholly different type have been taken 
from the same source. We have had the privilege of 
the acquaintance and friendship of Dr. E. IT. Davis, 
of New York, who, in company with ISrr. Squier. pub- 
lished an exhaustive work on this subject, and have 
vii 
from him the result of his ripe experience. It is his 
own settled conviction, arrived at through extensive 
explorations made in the mounds of Ohio and other 
IVestern States, that these vast and fancifully-shaped 
tumuli were erected by a race closely related to, if 
not identically the same as, the Aztecs of Central 
America, and that the interior of these mounds hold, 
buried in state, the remains of important personages 
of their time. It will be seen, then, if we accept this 
hypothesis, that our present race of North Atnerican 
Indians have had nothing whatever to do with the 
origin of these works, but have used them as con- 
venient places of burial, and, as Dr. Davis remarks : 
“ The mounds were not regarded by them as anything 
more than natural hillocks.” 
The late Dr. William Stimpson, whose memory 
will be honored by every lover of Natural Science, 
for his name has great proTiiinence on the roll of our 
American zoologists, was led lo explore certain eleva- 
tions near Chicago, that had long remained unrecog- 
nized as anything more than natural inequalities of 
the soil. Circular trenches, investing knolls two and 
a half feet above the surrounding plain, were found to 
be definite works of a by-gone race, resembling those 
already familiar to the inhabitants of Ohio and Wis- 
consin, exc.ept in size. Under Dr. Stimpson’s direction 
these mounds were explored. Portions of eleven 
skeletons were found in the first group opened, but 
they were so far decayed that only one skull and 
three frontal bones were sulliciently well preserved to 
admit of measurement and comparison. 
In Haas Park, near Chicago, Ills., mounds were 
found to contain several very remarkable human 
skeletons. Here, as well as in others, remains of 
individuals of the present Indian race were found, 
but always as recent burials, generally on the sur- 
face. 
Fig. iii. 
B 
Skull from Keunicott's Mound, near Chicago. 
By permission of Dr. Foster's publishers, we are 
enabled to present an illustration from his work on 
the Pre-Historic Races of the United States. Fig. iii 
is the frontal portion of the most perfect specimen 
of cranium that was found in the (Ihicago tumuli. 
'J'he letters a, a, indicate the unusual development of 
