sepulchers made with niches, where
they placed maize and wine and renewed the same annually. With some,
a mother dying while suckling her infant, the living child was
placed at her breast and buried with her, in order that in her
future state she might continue to nourish it with her milk.

_BURIAL IN MOUNDS._

In view of the fact that the subject of mound-burial is so extensive,
and that in all probability a volume by a member of the Bureau of
Ethnology may shortly be published, it is not deemed advisable to devote
any considerable space to it in this paper, but a few interesting
examples may be noted to serve as indications to future observers.

The first to which attention is directed is interesting as resembling
cist burial combined with deposition in mounds. The communication is
from Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology,
Cambridge, made to the Boston Society of Natural History, and is
published in volume XX of its proceedings, October 15, 1878:

* * * He then stated that it would be of interest to the members, in
connection with the discovery of dolmens in Japan, as described by
Professor Morse, to know that within twenty-four hours there had
been received at the Peabody Museum a small collection of articles
taken from rude dolmens (or chambered barrows, as they would be
called in England), recently opened by Mr. E. Curtiss, who is now
engaged, under his direction, in exploration for the Peabody Museum.

These chambered mounds are situated in the eastern part of Clay
County, Missouri, and form a large group on both sides of the
Missouri River. The chambers are, in the three opened by Mr.
Curtiss, about 8 feet square, and from 4-1/2 to 5 feet high, each
chamber having a passage-way several feet in length and 2 in width,
leading from the southern side and opening on the edge of the mound
formed by covering the chamber and passage-way with earth. The walls
of the chambered passages were about 2 feet thick, vertical, and
well made of stones, which were evenly laid without clay or mortar
of any kind. The top of one of the chambers had a covering of large,
flat rocks, but the others seem to have been closed over with wood.
The chambers were filled with clay which had been burnt, and
appeared as if it had fallen in from above. The inside walls of the
chambers also showed signs of fire. Under the burnt clay, in each
chamber, were found