ds of the Ohio and Scioto
valleys, large quantities of pipes have been found, bearing
traces of Indian ingenuity. That their burial mounds are of
great antiquity, is proved by the fact that trees several
centuries old are to be found growing upon them. About
twenty-five years ago, two distinguished archeologists
Squier and Davis--made extensive exploration of these
mounds, the results of which were published in an elaborate
memoir by the Smithsonian Institution. The mounds indicate
that an immense amount of labor has been expended upon them,
as the earthworks and mounds may be counted by thousands,
requiring either long time or an immense population; and
there is much probability in the supposition of Sir John
Lubbock that these parts of America were once inhabited by a
numerous and agricultural population. It may be asked, have
the races who erected these extensive mounds become extinct,
or do they exist in the poor uncivilized tribes of Indians
whom Europeans found inhabiting the river valleys of Ohio
and Illinois? Many of these mounds are in the form of
serpents and symbolic figures, and were evidently related to
the sacrificial worship of the mound builders."
Squier and Davis are of the opinion that:--
"The mound builders were inveterate smokers, if the great
numbers of pipes discovered in the mounds be admitted as
evidence of the fact. These constitute not only a numerous,
but a singularly interesting class of remains. In their
construction the skill of the maker seems to have been
exhausted. Their general form, which may be regarded as the
primitive form of the implement, is well exhibited in the
accompanying sketch. They are always carved from a single
piece, and consist of a flat carved bore of variable length
and width, with the bowl rising from the centre of the
convex side. From one of the ends, and communicating with
the hollow of the bowl, is drilled a small hole, which
answers the purpose of a tube; the corresponding opposite
division being left for the manifest purpose of holding the
implement to the mouth.
"The specimen here represented is finely carved from a
beautiful variety of brown porphyry, granulated with
various-colored materials, the whole much changed by the
action of fire, and somewhat resembl
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