o as to be fastened to a handle; these were used
for dressing skins. One was formed like a poniard, with a worked hilt.
With these may be connected arrow heads and sharp pointed weapons of
the worked antlers of the stag, and tusks of the wild boar.

Of ornaments, I noticed pins used for dressing the hair, made of the
columns of large sea shells. The head is generally round, sometimes
oval, from an eighth to a half of an inch in diameter, retaining the
diagonal groove of the pillar from which it is made. The stems vary
in length from one to six inches. It would be tedious even to classify
ornamental beads and buttons of shell work, such as are usually found
in the mounds. These trinkets are perforated, and, in addition to
their being articles of dress, were used probably as "wampum," the
currency of the recent Indians.

A miscellaneous collection includes a hematite stone, wrought in
the shape of a cup weighing half a pound; when rubbed or ground it
furnished the war paint of the savages; also the extremity of a copper
tube, two inches long; needles in bone and shell, from an inch to
six inches long, with grooves round the head, to serve the purpose of
eyes; and plates of mica. The use of mica plates, which are found of
large size in some of the Western mounds, has excited some inquiry.
Of a certain thickness, they make good mirrors. Beside their use
for ornamental purposes, they were probably looking-glasses of the
beauties of the stone age. There was also found a pipe of soap stone,
having a stem five inches long, and a bowl with a broad brim, like a
Quaker's hat.

Of earthenware, there was an endless variety of fragments of the usual
black, grey, or red compressed clay, mixed with pulverized shells or
stones. One kind I have never seen described. The sherds had a red
coating on both sides, an eighth of an inch in thickness, evidently
not a paint or a glaze. The red coloring might have come from the
pottery being burnt in the open air, instead of baked in a furnace,
were not the layer of uniform thickness and of homogeneous paste,
unlike the material of the vessel, which was a gray mixture of clay
and particles of shells.

I give the above memoranda to the general fund of information,
touching a subject that invites inquiry on account of its novelty and
ethnological importance. Every examination of the monumental remains
of the ancient Americans brings to light some new feature in structure
or type of rudimental a