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Some estimate of the original maximum height of these tumuli may be formed from the observation that sandy earth, such as that of which they are composed, will not remain in position on a slope of more than 400 from the horizontal; they could not, therefore, have been higher, even if raised to a point at the apex, than two-fifths of the width at the base; and the very first rain or wind would reduce them considerably. As they are now, they would probably remain, with contour unchanged by the action of the elements, for a thousand years to come.

In one of the largest mounds, (W,) about twelve feet high, and standing on the highest ground, opened some years since, was discovered an inclosure of "dry wall," some ten feet square, containing a number of skeletons supposed to have been buried in a sitting posture, with no indication of any covering or floor having ever been there, save the earth of which the whole mound was composed. A portion of this wall, which still remained exposed, we carefully removed for examination, and found it to be built of the fossiliferous limestone common in the neighborhood, brought probably from near the river-bank, a quarter of a mile distant and a hundred feet lower; laid up with tolerable evenness on the inner side. It was about three feet high, two feet thick at the top, and three feet at the base, piled up loosely, the lower stones broad and flat, rather heavier than one man could well carry, and lying on the clean, yellowish sand. Some of the stones had been burned red previously to being placed in position. This inclosure was entirely at one side of the center of the mound, and nothing of interest was found in the other part.

This region has long been occupied by the tribe of Indians known as the Sacs and Foxes, who came from the region of the Saint Lawrence over two hundred years ago, and remained until about the period of the Black Hawk war, about 1832.

George L. Davenport, esq., of this city, who was born on the island of Rock Island, in 1817, and was the first white child born in this section of the country, and who has been intimately acquainted with the Indians for over fifty years, and speaks their language, informs us that the natives positively had no knowledge of these structures, and paid no attention whatever to them. They had a village or town in the immediate neighborhood of the mounds, though their principal town was near the site of the present city of Rock Island.

It is, therefore, certain that the mounds presented much the same appearance many years ago as now, and that these Indians neither con

structed nor used them.

No evidences of "intrusive burials" have, in any instance, been discovered, and without doubt the mounds have been as at present, and entirely undisturbed, for many centuries, until opened by recent explorers.

We inclose herewith a diagram of the group of mounds, also drawings of the relics exhumed, and a series of photographs of all the well preserved crania.

We also have the pleasure of presenting an exhaustive report upon the crania, by Dr. R. J. Farquharson, a member of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, including measurements, analyses, and careful comparison with skulls of other races of men, and with other wellauthenticated mound-builders' skulls.

We also inclose Mr. A. S. Tiffany's description of the locality, on Rock Island, where he discovered the skull which is represented by photograph No. 8.

A STUDY OF SKULLS AND LONG BONES FROM MOUNDS NEAR ALBANY, ILL. BY R. J. FARQUHARSON, M. D., of Davenport, Iowa.

This lot of bones was obtained from mounds near Albany, Ill., by the Davenport Academy of Sciences. The topography, &c., of these mounds is given in the preceding paper by Mr. Pratt, who conducted the explorations.

In the first place, an attempt was made by a rude analysis to arrive at the probable age of these bones. A small part of the middle portion of one of the long bones was incinerated, with the following result: Weight before incineration, thirty-eight grains; afterward, thirty grains; loss, eight grains; equal to 20 per cent.

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Now, as the lightness, or diminished specific gravity of these bones,. precludes the idea of an increase of the mineral matter, and also as we know that, in certain conditions of soil, an actual loss of mineral matter takes place, we may safely infer that a considerable loss of animal matter has here taken place; a loss even greater than what the above figures would seem to indicate.

But, unfortunately, these data will not afford even an approximate estimate as to the time since these bones were buried.

"In an old Roman frontal bone dug up from Pompeii, Dr. Davy found 35.5 animal parts, and 64.5 earthy; and in the tooth of the mammoth 30.5 animal, and 69.5 earthy." (Todd and Bowman's Anatomy, vol. 1, p. 105.)

Orfila, in his Exhumations Juridiques, (vol. 1, p. 350,) states that bones buried in the cemetery of the Innocents, Paris, over six hundred years, yielded, in analysis, 27 per cent. of gelatin and 10 per cent. of fat; while fresh ones yielded only 30 per cent. of gelatin, showing only a slight alteration. On the other hand, bones exhumed from the church-yard of Ste. Geneviève, Paris, after a burial of over seven hundred years, showed marked alteration, which he describes as follows: Very brittle,

of a purplish color; remarkable both for the absence of animal matter and for the presence of the acid phosphate of lime. Unfortunately, no analysis of these changed bones is given.

TABLE NO. 1.-The plan of this table is taken from Foster's work on the prehistoric races of the United States, and the letters at the heads of the columns refer to the same measurements. Four other columns are, however, added, the first giving the capacities in cubic inches; an important point omitted by Foster, probably from the fragmentary nature of the skulls in his possession. The second and third added columns give the distance of the occipital protuberance from the posterior margin of the foramen magnum and the ratio of this distance to the long diameter of the skull. This is an important characteristic of the moundbuilder race, according to Dr. Wyman.

The fourth and last column gives the major and minor axes of the foramen magnum in millimeters.

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I. Capacity approximate, from imperfection. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.60 to 0.625. II. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.846 to 0.784

III. Skull, thick and heavy, from former disease. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.833 to 0.772. IV. Ratio of short and long diameters, 1 to 0.933.

V. Aged-molars all gone and alveoli absorbed. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.848 to 0.757. VI. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.923 to 0.923. VII. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.718 to 0.718. VIII. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.771 to 0.715. IX. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.685 to 0.732. X. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.836 to 0.761. XI. Ratio of short and long diameters, 0.725 to 0,725.

*A. The horizontal circumference in the plane of a line joining the glabella with the occipital protuberance.

*B. The longitudinal arc from the nasal depression along the middle line of the skull to the occipital tuberosity.

*C. From the level of the glabello-occipital line on each side, across the middle of the sagittal suture to the same point on the opposite side.

D. The vertical height from the glabello-occipital line.

*E. The extreme longitudinal measurement.

*F. The extreme transverse measurement.

TABLE NO. 2.-In this table an attempt is made (by means of another table of the comparative lengths of the various long bones in a series of skeletons, given in Orfila's Exhumations Juridiques) to arrive at

some idea of the stature of the mound-builders, but the conclusions are very imperfect, perhaps necessarily so. Enough was learned, however, to safely warrant the conclusion that none of the bones examined be. longed to an individual much, if any, higher than six feet, thus doing away with the assumption, made by some persons at the time of the exhumation, that some of the mound-builders were giants.

TABLE NO. 2.-Stature estimated from length of bones.

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1. The total length of the body is made out by adding two inches to that of the skeleton. 2. These diameters, taken near the middle of the length of the tibia, and at its most prominent part, show its flatness and the comparative sharpness of the shin-bones.

3. From an average of five skeletons in the table having a humerus measuring 33 centimeters. Here it may be remarked that in the French table there is a greater disparity in the height of the skeleton, in regard to the humerus, than either to the femur or tibia, one skeleton of 1.86 meters having a humerus of only 33 centimeters.

The skulls and long bones of the modern Indians used in the comparative measurements in these tables, were those of male Sioux Indians from Minnesota, who died in this vicinity, while in captivity on account of their complicity with the massacre in that State, so that there can be no doubt of their identity.

It only remains to remark, in conclusion, that an unusual number of perfect sets of teeth were found in the mounds examined. These teeth are invariably without any signs of decay, of almost flinty hardness, and very much worn away, apparently from the attrition of very hard particles in the food, probably the siliceous outer coats of some kind of grain or seeds.

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On the Rock Island arsenal-grounds, near the western extremity of the island, there had been an excavation about three hundred feet long and eight feet deep. At a depth of three feet from the top there was a deposit of shells, mostly unios, but including melantho subsolida, and two or more species of helix. This shell-bed at this exposure varies from six to sixteen inches thick.

In this deposit the skull and bones belonging to one individual were found; all the covering was an aqueous sedimeut. Deposited with and above the shells are lime, gravel, and sand, the material becoming finer toward the top, the last foot being fine alluvium and vegetablemold. The sedimentary lines were perfect and unbroken, and the excavation had made the means of observation all that could be desired.

It was visited by many members of our academy, and by Prof. Alexander Winchell, while some of the bones were in place; and all agree that the covering to this pre-historic man was put on by sedimentary deposit.

Accurate levelings prove the top of this deposit to be eighteen feet above the highest water known since Fort Armstrong was established on the island.

ANTIQUITIES OF NORTHERN OHIO.

BY GEO. W. HILL, M. D., OF ASHLAND, OHIO.

In the spring of 1872, Mr. S. W. Briggs, a farmer of Sullivan Township, Ashland County, while plowing an old "cat-swamp" or slough, came upon a bed or nest of Indian flint-implements about eighteen inches beneath the surface. His attention was arrested by a grating sound beneath the plow, and on examination found two or three peculiarly-shaped arrow-heads or flint cutting-points. Hastening to his house, he procured a shovel and mattock, and proceeded to unearth the deposit. On carefully removing the surrounding soil-rich black mold-he found a keg-like vessel of red-elm (Ulmus rubra) bark, about three-fourths of an inch in thickness, some ten or twelve in diameter, and about thirteen in height. The vessel was a section of the bark, which had been removed from the tree by cutting or notching around the body and then peeling it off. It would hold something over one peck. It was in a tolerable state of preservation. It contained two hundred and one flint-implements, neatly and symmetrically finished, and a number of fragments which had not been dressed. The bottom of the nest was about two feet below the surface. About four feet south of the vessel his plow struck a forked oak-stake, the double end being deep in the mold, and also another stake, of the same timber, about four feet east of the deposit, driven deeply into the loam. The lower ends of the stakes were over three feet deep, the parts above the water and ground having decayed were wanting. In digging down, the forks were found to be beneath the surface soil and quite sound. There was also a streak of yellow sand about ten inches wide, two or three deep, and eight or ten feet long, running in a northeastern direction from the deposit, which could have been plainly seen when the water stood over the slough. This sand is found on the banks of Black River, about one and a half miles distant. The slough was drained some ten years since, and has been once or

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