uilders are generally supposed to have attained. To which
answer may be made that it is precisely on the supposition that the
carvings were accurate copies from nature that the theories respecting
them have been promulgated by archaeologists. On no other supposition
could such theories have been advanced. So accurate indeed have they
been deemed that they have been directly compared with the work of
modern artists, as will be noticed hereafter. Hence the method here
adopted in their study seems to be not only the best, but the only one
likely to produce definite results.

If it be found that there are good reasons for pronouncing the carvings
not to be accurate copies from nature, and of a lower artistic standard
than has been supposed, it will remain for the archaeologist to determine
how far their unlikeness to the animals they have been supposed to
represent can be attributed to shortcomings naturally pertaining to
barbaric art. If he choose to assume that they were really intended as
imitations, although in many particulars unlike the animals he wishes to
believe them to represent, and that they are as close copies as can be
expected from sculptors not possessed of skill adequate to carry out
their rude conceptions, he will practically have abandoned the position
taken by many prominent archaeologists with respect to the mound
sculptors' skill, and will be forced to accord them a position on the
plane of art not superior to the one occupied by the North American
Indians. If it should prove that but a small minority of the carvings
can be specifically identified, owing to inaccuracies and to their
general resemblance, he may indeed go even further and conclude that
they form a very unsafe basis for deductions that owe their very
existence to assumed accurate imitation.

MANATEE.

In 1848 Squier and Davis published their great work on the Mounds of the
Mississippi Valley. The skill and zeal with which these gentlemen
prosecuted their researches in the field, and the ability and fidelity
which mark the presentation of their results to the public are
sufficiently attested by the fact that this volume has proved alike the
mine from which subsequent writers have drawn their most important
facts, and the chief inspiration for the vast amount of work in the same
direction since undertaken.

On pages 251 and 252 of the above-mentioned work appear figures of an
animal which is there called "Lamantin, Manitus, or Sea Cow