tribal mounds, shell mounds, stone tumuli, and single graves. In this region there is a remarkable absence of megalithic monuments and animal-shaped mounds. The presence of rock-walls, embankments, and defensive inclosures, is noted; and, in connection with the grave-mounds, cremation and sundry funeral customs are alluded to and discussed. The plans of these prominent indications of early constructive skill are based upon original surveys, and the impressions conveyed of the monuments themselves are derived from the personal observations of the writer. The author does not concur in the opinion, so often expressed, that "the mound-builders were a race distinct from, and superior in art, government, and religion to, the Southern Indians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." His reasons are fairly and cogently stated, and it is shown that the practice of sepulchral mound-building, and the construction of elevated spaces for chieftain-lodges and council-houses, were perpetuated within the historic period. In accounting for the marked decadence in industry, combined labor, craft and power which characterized these peoples in the eighteenth century, when their condition is contrasted with that of their ancestors, two centuries before, it is suggested that "the inroads of the Spaniards violently shocked this primitive population, imparting new ideas, interrupting established customs, overturning acknowledged government, impoverishing whole districts, engendering a sense of insecurity until that time unknown, causing marked changes, and entailing losses and demoralizations perhaps far more potent than we are inclined, at first thought, to believe."
Extended reference is made to the location and contents of refuse-piles and shell-heaps—objects which have of late attracted so much attention in many parts of the world, indicating, as they do, the resorts of primitive peoples, furnishing evidence of the food upon which they subsisted, and revealing the implements and utensils upon which they relied for daily use.
Stone-graves and the use of copper are treated of in the tenth chapter. Plate VI.—in which are figured the relics found in a stone-grave in Nacoochee Valley—possesses unusual beauty, and conveys an emphatic idea of the commercial relations existing among the North American tribes. From this grave were taken a laminated copper axe, which had probably been obtained from the shores of Lake Superior, a cassio flammea, from the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic coast, the remnant of a basket made of a reed not native to the valley, and stone implements laboriously constructed of materials brought from a distance. All these were once the property of a single individual.
In the chapters upon arrow and spear heads—grooved, wedge-shaped, perforated, and ceremonial axes—cutting, piercing, smoothing, scraping, and agricultural implements—the author enters upon a well-considered analysis of the characteristics of the prevailing types, and accompanies his illustrations with descriptions and suggestions indicative of extensive research and accurate archæological knowledge.
In the fourteenth chapter we are made acquainted with the different methods adopted by the Southern Indians for the capture of fish. Grooved, notched, and perforated net-sinkers and plummets are figured. The chung-kee game—that famous game of the North American Indians, to which they were so passionately addicted that, when all private property had been gambled away, the desperate players hazarded even their personal liberty upon the final throw—is next considered; and, in this connection, numerous discoidal stones are shown. The limits of this review do not permit us to dwell upon the use of stone tubes in connection with the arts of the medicine-man and the conjurer, as explained by the author, or to enumerate seriatim the matters treated of in this entertaining and instructive volume. We commend, as worthy of careful study, the chapters upon pipes (which are considered under the three classes of idol-pipes, calumets, and common pipes), on idols and image-worship, and upon pottery. The Etowah idol, figured at page 432, is perhaps the most notable ancient stone image which has yet been found in association with Indian relics north and east of Mexico. Much historical information has been collected concerning the primitive uses of tobacco and the office of the peace-pipe. In plate XXIII the typical forms
