chiefly in Ohio. Relics of art have been dug from some of the mounds,
consisting of a considerable variety of ornaments and implements, made
of copper, silver, obsidian, porphyry, and greenstone, finely wrought.
There are axes, single and double; adzes, chisels, drills or gravers,
lance-heads, knives, bracelets, pendants, beads, and the like, made of
copper. There are articles of pottery, elegantly designed and finished;
ornaments made of silver, bone, mica from the Alleghanies, and shells
from the Gulf of Mexico.

[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Rectangular Work, Randolph County, Indiana.]

The articles made of stone show fine workmanship; some of them are
elaborately carved. Tools of some very hard material must have been
required to work the porphyry in this manner. Obsidian is a volcanic
product largely used by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians for arms and
cutting instruments. It is found in its natural state nowhere nearer the
Mississippi Valley than the Mexican mountains of Cerro Gordo.

There appears to be evidence that the Mound-Builders had the art of
spinning and weaving, for cloth has been found among their remains. At
the meeting of the International Congress of Pre-Historic Archaeology
held at Norwich, England, in 1868, one of the speakers stated this fact
as follows: "Fragments of charred cloth made of spun fibres have been
found in the mounds. A specimen of such cloth, taken from a mound in
Butler County, Ohio, is in Blackmore Museum, Salisbury. In the same
collection are several lumps of burnt clay which formed part of the
'altar,' so called, in a mound in Ross County, Ohio: to this clay a few
charred threads are still attached." Figures 17 and 18 represent
specimens of vases taken from the mounds.

[Illustration: Figs. 17, 18.--Vases from the Mounds.]

Mr. Schoolcraft gives this account of a discovery made in West Virginia:
"_Antique tube: telescopic device._ In the course of excavations made in
1842 in the easternmost of the three mounds of the Elizabethtown group,
several tubes of stone were disclosed, the precise object of which has
been the subject of various opinions. The longest measured twelve
inches, the shortest eight. Three of them were carved out of steatite,
being skillfully cut and polished. The diameter of the tube externally
was one inch and four tenths; the bore, eight tenths of an inch. This
calibre was continued till within three eighths of an inch of the sight
end, when it diminishes t