they represent, and are treasured with no small degree of veneration and care. There are many legends, some tragedies, and a great deal of history connected with all these faces that it is hoped may some day be written; but for the present we will close this article with a descriptive poetical tribute written by the gifted and lamented Mrs. Sigourney while on a visit to the old mansion some years ago: SCHAGHTICOKE AND THE KNICKERBOCKERS. O vale of peace! O haunt serene! O hill-encircled shades! No. footstep rude, or fiery neigh Your sylvan steep invades. The red-browed Indian's planted name Though they who erst that baptism gave Have sunk to rise no more. Here, clad in ancient honor, dwelt And wisely ruled in hall and bower, Then gatherings grand of social joy While roof and rafter shook with mirth, Which still is warm and true. revive an old story set on foot, or at least confirmed, by John Haywood, in his Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, written fifty-three years ago. This fanciful notion, although now and formerly commonly entertained by the people of that State, has been thoroughly exploded by the labors of Troost, Putnam, Clark, Haskins, and others, but especially by the explorations of Dr. Joseph Jones, who "examined the bones from fifteen aboriginal cemeteries without discovering a single skeleton of an adult of unusually small stature." While giving a death-blow to this myth, these gentlemen have disclosed other facts of more thrilling interest, which prove that in Tennessee are to be found the evidences of the most advanced civilization which obtained in the Mississippi Valley. As this evidence lies mainly in the tombs of the dead, it will be interesting to pass in review the subject of aboriginal burial in Tennessee. The skeletons of the aboriginal race are found in caves and in stone graves. The caves of the limestone regions were used by the aborigines as receptacles for the dead. When one died, the body was usually doubled up, the knees touching the chin, and wrapped in skins and mats, the number and fineness depending undoubtedly upon the wealth and importance of the deceased. In one instance the skeleton of a man was found wrapped in fourteen deerskins, over which were blankets of bark. In some cases they were shrouded in a curious cloth made of bast fibre, into which feathers were twisted, so as to give the appearance of a variegated silk mantle. Over these were coarser wrappings; but the order in which they were laid on was by no means uniform. I was very much reminded of this snug nest while watching Mr. Dall unwrapping one of the mummies from Kagamil Cave, Alaska. The body, with its coverings, was often placed in a wicker basket, pyramidal in form, and smaller at the top. Sometimes the basket was covered; at other times the head protruded from an opening. Owing to the nitre in the soil of the caves, the corpses have not altogether decayed, the flesh being dried up and the hair turned red or yellow. The working of the caves for saltpetre during the last century has nearly destroyed these witnesses of ancient civilization; so we turn from them, with their cliff paintings and scattered relics, to the better-preserved testimony of the stone graves. The stone graves were as much the suggestion of nature as they are the characteristics of a race, for they are found only in those parts of Tennessee where slabs of limestone and sandstone abound-in the central fertile valleys, and on the bluffs of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries. They were constructed by digging a hole of the required dimensions, and lining it at the bottom, sides, and ends with flat slabs. The corpse or bones were laid in the cist, and slabs laid over all. The drawings on page 44 are of a similar one lately found near Auvernier, Switzerland, and belonging to the lacustrine period. There are three kinds of cists-the small, the short, and the long. The small cists are both short and narrow, and are made of very thin slabs. These are the graves of neighborhood of one of these earth-works. These embankments frequently have the ditch on the inside, and are entered by a gateway which is defended by a blind wall leading to a culde-sac. At various places are passways and bastions, making the position one of great strength. The mounds in these inclosures are of two classes those containing human remains and those containing none, or, if any, those interred after the mound was finished. Those containing no bodies are either immense piles, the supposed location of ancient council-houses, or they are the so-called sacrificial mounds, built up by successive layers of ashes and burned clay in their centres. OSSUARY OF AUVERNIER, SWITZERLAND, WITH THE DIRT OLEARED AWAY. children, which is proved by the frequent occurrence of two sets of teeth, as well as by the fragile condition of the cranial and other bones. These are the graves so often mistaken for those of pygmies. The short cists are somewhat similar to the first in structure, but they are nearly square, deeper, and made of thicker slabs. They vary from fourteen to thirty-six inches in dimensions. They are sometimes empty of human remains, but are more commonly ossuaries, or places of deposit for the bones of several bodies, constructed on the occasion of some funereal festival, and filled at one time with the bones of deceased friends saved up for the occasion, or brought along on some journey. The skulls are usually in the centre, and the other bones are piled around with little order or system. The long cists were evidently intended for burial by inhumation at length, although the skeletons in some are doubled up and lying in various positions. They are coffinshaped, narrow at the head and foot, and broad at the shoulders. Sometimes a small grave is appended to a long one, apparently containing a mother and child. These three forms of slab graves are found in mounds, in cemeteries, and occasionally isolated. Both the mounds and cemeteries are inclosed by long lines of earth-works containing oftentimes many acres of land abutting upon some stream of The burial mounds are the most interesting, on account of the variety and peculiar character of the interments. The slab graves in these mounds have three methods of arrangement-in layers, in lines radia water, or they are in the immediate VIEW OF THE OSSUARY OF AUVERNIER WITH THE BONES INCLOSED. ting from a fire pan or a central grave, and found in the cave earth, mounds and cemepromiscuous. The burial in layers was in the following manner: A series of graves was constructed at or near the natural surface, so that the right wall of one formed the left wall of the next. When the stratum was as extensive as desired, the whole was covered with earth, and the process repeated upward until the mound was finished. In some of these burial mounds over a hundred skeletons are inelosed in layers at least four deep, and the inclosing tumulus is fifty feet in diameter and twelve feet high. In one of these, explored by Dr. Jones, the bottom graves were of the short variety, and contained bones much broken, while the upper graves contained skeletons buried at full length. The radiate burial consisted in arranging a series of graves around a central mass of hard-baked clay, called the "altar," dish-shaped, and filled with ashes, bones, and fragments of pottery. The feet of the dead were all turned inward, so that the coffin-shaped cists would fill up more conveniently the circular space. Outside of these a circular row of graves, perpendicular to the radii, completed the series. In some cases the central pan of ashes was replaced by a deep octagonal grave containing a single skeleton buried in a sitting posture. These radiate graves were evidently the receptacles of royal persons, since the most elaborate and precious deposits are found in them. By promiscuous burial is meant the interment of the corpse in unlooked-for localities-on the sides teries occur near burial caves, and the same deposits and paintings are found in all. Having reviewed the different methods of burial practiced by the Tennessee stonegrave race, it will be a matter of interest to examine their contents, embracing skeletons and burial deposits. Dr. Joseph Jones, during his extensive explorations, paid especial attention to both of these, and will give an interesting report of them in his forth-coming paper in the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." The position of the skeletons in the cists -at length, doubled up, and with the bones of the body and limbs around the skull— and the occurrence of the cists singly and in groups, have been sufficiently noticed. All the evidence collected by Dr. Jones and the others not only contradicts the as Line of Works 2470 ft." Stone 12 Acres Residence Graves Big Harpeth River Scale 830 ft.to the inch MOUND BURIAL GROUND ON THE BIG HARPETH RIVER, TENNESSEE. of or about the mounds, or in isolated | sertion that these graves contained a pygmy places. race or a people of short stature, but confirms the opinion that they were a tall and handsome people. One skeleton gave the and the internal capacity of Dr. Jones's largest cranium gave 103 cubic inches, against 109 cubic inches for the largest Caucasian reported by Dr. Morton. In addition to this careful burial in mounds, extensive grave-yards are found at various places in Tennessee and Kentucky-measurement of a man seven feet in height, within and near the earth-works, along the rivers, in the valleys, and around springs of water. The city of Nashville is partly built over one of them. These cemetery graves are precisely like the others in all respects, excepting the value of their deposits. They are sometimes found protruding a few inches above the surrounding soil. Frequently the washing away of a bluff exposes a whole series. The plow has unearthed and exposed many. The best-preserved specimens are found by the skillful explorer by, sounding with an iron rod, for they are never over a few inches below the surface. In the mounds, even, many are found in the same way. In the cave, mound, and cemetery burials we have enough of similarity to justify us in supposing them to have been the work of the same race, for slab graves have been | Two features of especial interest to the scholar were carefully investigated by Dr.. Jones-the marks of syphilis, and head-flattening. To the history of the former the author has devoted much time and many pages of his contribution, to which I must refer the reader on this point, while our attention will be given to the latter subject. It is well known that all American Indians carry their infants in a pappoose case. This is a board or wattled frame, upon which the child is strapped and kept until done nursing. The constant pressure of the hard case upon the back of the head must necessarily give it a flattened appearance. The same occurs with white children who have been long bedridden by scarlet fever and other complaints. If from any cause the child acquired the habit of lying upon one side, the pressure exerted unequally seems NAVAJO ORADLE.-[AFTER SCHOOLORAFT.] to have modified the form and relation of every bone in the cranium. This accidental head-shaping must not be confounded with the custom of the Chinooks and very many other tribes in different parts of the earth of head-shaping by bandages, pads of bast or wool, bags of sand, or by kneading with the hands. The Tennessee race do not appear to have practiced any of these. If any artificial pressure was exerted at all, it was to the back of the head and not to the front. Dr. Jones, in speaking of the effects of this pressure, says: "When viewed from behind, the stone-grave skull presents a conical or wedge-shaped outline, the base being wide at the occipital protuberances and at the opening of the ears; from thence to the parietal protuberances it is almost perpendicular, and slopes regularly thence to the vertex." Owing to the pressure, in many skulls the foramen magnum does not occupy a strictly symmetrical position, being thrown further back, or to one side. From the same cause, one of the glenoid fosse is frequently in advance of the other, and the lower jaw asymmetrical. The parietal diameter is out of all proportion with the longitudinal diameter, in one or two cases exceeding it. The frequent occurrence of Wormian bones in these crania leads us to compare them with the Inca Peruvians; but Dr. Jones thinks that it would be hardly fair to attribute their occurrence to headshaping, inasmuch as many crania which do not exhibit flattening to a marked degree contain a large proportion of these intercalary bones. The fact comes out, from a very extensive measurement, that the whole volume of the brain is not diminished, that compression at one point means expansion in another, and that as age advances many of its effects fade out entirely. We turn now to the grave deposits in order to hear their story of the social state of this extinct racé. The mardelles, or sunken places, on the mounds and elsewhere, lead us to believe that this people, like their descendants, used wigwams and communal lodges for houses, and basked and slept under the shelter of a hedge or stockade built around a shallow pit. The occurrence of the bones of game animals and of weapons of the chase in connection with the bones of the dead points us to the hunter life of the people, although the cleared areas and the unmistakable corn hills as readily testify to their agricultural pursuits, and the woven bast mats and feather mantles around the dead in caves witness to their progress in weaving. One of the most interesting grave deposits is the pottery, composed in every instance of clay with powdered shell dégraissant, and never glazed. Of this material we find images and vessels. Of the former we shall speak presently; of the latter, every variety is found in the graves; the finer kinds in the more elaborate mound graves; the coarser kinds in the cemetery and isolated graves. These vessels are found in every position patterns on the inside and outside with the | inch in length, on which the sign of the same ochre, some of them bearing the sign of the cross inclosed with scalloped bands. They assume a variety of shapes, so that one might think freedom in art to be an aboriginal idea, and yet, together with this variety, which is a necessity with an artist who works in clay without COPPER CROSS FROM TENNESSEE. [JONES.] a mould or a wheel, there is but a limited number of forms toward which those early efforts aspired. In addition to those rudest forms, called forth by the simplest wants, and for which nature furnished the models, we have matter for thought in the animal forms and the bottle-shaped vessels with the opening in the side of the neck. The pipes of clay and stone furnish in this section, as in the mounds north of the Ohio River, the most remarkable specimens of sculpture and the plastic art. The implements of general use, such as hoes, plummets, celts, knives, scrapers, drills, whetstones, mealing-stones, and paint-grinders, are very similar to those described and figured by Squier and Davis in Vol. I. of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." Some of Dr. Jones's specimens are very handsome, and many in the collection of Mr. Devereux make it difficult to decide between the two sides of the Ohio River. Two of Dr. Jones's objects a chipped blade-like jasper, twenty-two inches in length, and a greenstone axe, the handle and blade being in one cross was stamped. They were pierced at one end for suspension. This, of course, has no connection with Christianity, nor indeed with phallic worship, and if not the merest accident in the world, may have some reference to the four points of the compass. Mr. C. M. Clark discovered in a mound, four hundred feet in circumference and twenty feet high, an eyelet-shaped tube, about an inch and a half in diameter, resting upon a layer of ashes and burned clay on a level with the surrounding soil. Above this were three other similar layers, sometimes called altars. In the same locality a copper mask was found, consisting of four thin plates, two welded together down the centre form the face, and two small plates riveted on at the sides stand for ears. On the surface of the mask the features of the human face are traced as if with a small punch. In an adjacent mound another bobbin, figured above, was found, on which some hempen thread was wound. Many personal ornaments made from sea shells are found upon the breasts and around piece-are perhaps the most beautiful stone | the necks of the dead. The larger ones are implements of the kind yet discovered. The copper specimens show no signs of having been moulded. Fragments of remarkably pure ore have been flattened out into shape with stone hammers and anvils. Dr. Jones found three small plates, about an carved and painted with devices unintelligible to us, but whose frequent recurrence proves them to have had a standing significance to their wearers. Pearls are also found in the graves, and beads of stone, shell, clay, and other materials. In several |