It is easy to see, even at a glance, that most of those in this great deposit of 60,000 are true pearls. Many are very irregular in form, and quite a number are the elongated, somewhat feather-shaped, “hinge pearls,” that are found in the region of the hinge teeth of Unios. A large and interesting exhibit of these is shown in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. But thousands of spherical pearls were also obtained, from the “altars” or “hearths” of mounds belonging to the first division of Squier and Davis’s classification, above noted. From the Turner group, in Clermont County, in the Little Miami Valley, Professor Putnam obtained for the Peabody Museum as much as half a bushel of pearls of this character. As these had been exposed to fire, nearly all were blackened, some cracked, and all greatly impaired.^[553]

The next great series of explorations were those conducted by Mr. W. K. Moorehead in the Scioto Valley, in the counties of Ross, Franklin and Pickaway, Ohio. He opened and examined a number of mounds, and found pearls or pearl beads in ten or twelve of them, but the larger deposits were confined to certain limited districts, which seem to have been occupied by tribes more advanced in culture and in traffic than the rest. In these, the pearls and also objects of other kinds brought from a distance, are principally found. The scattered mounds, not associated with any village or community sites, have few of these valuable objects.

But even where they are found freely, pearls were apparently used or possessed by only a few individuals. Mr. Moorehead investigated in all 117 burial mounds, containing about 1400 skeletons. Pearls were met with in only seven of these mounds, and in connection with but twenty-two skeletons. These, however, yielded a total of 2600 pearls, apparently from Unios, the numbers found with single skeletons varying from 18 to 602, an average of 118. It thus appears that in Mr. Moorehead’s researches, pearls were found in about one mound out of seventeen, and in these, with about one skeleton out of eight.

From “altar mounds,” pearls have been in some cases taken in vast numbers. Professor Putnam’s discoveries are mentioned above; and Mr. Moorehead obtained tens of thousands from two altars or hearths in the Hopewell group, which will be described hereafter.

When found in the burial mounds with skeletons, pearls are generally seen to have been placed at the wrists or ankles, or about the neck, or in the mouth. Sometimes they are found on copper plates, and occasionally they show evidence of having been sewn or attached to a garment. Particulars on these points will be given further on. Mr. Moorehead has also found bears’ teeth, set with pearls, as Putnam and Metz did in the Marriott mound, lying with or near skeletons.

In the case of the altar mounds, there seems to have been a different procedure, not a burial, but a great funeral sacrifice in honor of some very distinguished person, in which treasures of every kind, including great stores of pearls, were consumed, or meant to be. Of this, Mr. Moorehead says, in a letter to the author: “In the case of all altar offerings, a fire had been kindled ... and all these things were heaped upon it. They were utterly ruined, save a few; ... those at the top were not so much affected as those at the bottom.”

Mr. Moorehead’s investigations already mentioned were in the years 1888 to 1891 inclusive; he next took up especially the remarkable Hopewell groups of mounds, in 1891–1892, and explored these extensively for the archæological exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago.^[554] This was his most important and elaborate investigation, and will be described in some detail. In 1896, he made a partial exploration of the Harness mound near Chillicothe, which has been fully completed more recently by Prof. William C. Mills, and will also be described further on.

The investigations made in the Hopewell group of mounds were recorded by Mr. Moorehead in a series of articles in the “Antiquarian.”^[555] He gives a general account of the remarkable region of ancient remains in Ross County, Ohio. The State archæological map shows the “mound belt,” as a strip of country some fifteen miles wide and one hundred miles long, extending through the Scioto Valley, from about Columbus to Portsmouth. The ancient works noted on this map, though not all that exist there, yet number over 900 mounds, 24 village sites, 36 circles of earth and stone, 87 other inclosures and works of similar character, and 31 sites of gravel or kame burials. Five groups of mounds in particular exist in Ross County, all of them showing a “high culture” state. “All of the lower Scioto Valley,” says Mr. Moorehead, “was occupied by a mound-building tribe ranking higher in intelligence and numerically stronger than that of any other section of the whole Ohio region.” Among the many remarkable ancient works in that part of the country, the five groups in Ross County are the most important, and among these, the Hopewell group is preëminent. The first published notice of them, which appeared in 1820, was by Mr. Caleb Atwater.^[556] Squier and Davis examined and described them in the years 1844–1846, and obtained large and notable collections from them which are now in England, in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, as not enough interest in such matters then existed in America to induce the purchase and retention of these valuable treasures. From that time until 1891, when Mr. Moorehead began his explorations there, no one had paid much attention to these mounds, all published accounts being derived from those of Squier and Davis. They described them under the name of Clark’s works, from the owner of the farm within which they lie; but the property has since passed into the possession of Mr. M. C. Hopewell. From this fact, yet more from his kind and intelligent interest in the work of exploration, his name has been given to the group.

The Hopewell works are situated on the north fork of Paint Creek, about one third of a mile from the stream. The intervening space is low bottom-land, and the works stand upon a terrace about twenty feet high, from which again there is a rather steep rise of thirty or forty feet more, to the general level of the country. They consist of a nearly quadrangular inclosure, about half a mile in length (strictly 2800 feet), and half as much in width, occupying the entire breadth of the terrace. At its eastern end, this large inclosure opens into a second and smaller one, an exact square of 850 feet. Within the main inclosure are one or more village sites, a number of separate mounds, and especially a group of several connected elevations, together known as the Effigy mound, these being much the highest and most conspicuous, and themselves surrounded by a semicircular inclosure. The whole suggests a defensive work, or “walled town”; but the wall, although strongly and carefully built, partly of stones and partly of hard clay, is so low—only from four to six feet in height—that it could not have been a very formidable obstacle to a vigorous assault; and, moreover, the whole is overlooked and “commanded” from the bluff above it. The mounds, as Squier and Davis examined them, were pronounced to be mainly of the sacrificial or “altar” type. Since their very full and accurate account was published, time and the hand of man have reduced and almost obliterated portions of the wall and some of the smaller mounds, while the creek has slightly shifted its course. When they wrote their description, it was a little nearer than it is now; and they then expressed the belief that it had formerly washed the base of the terrace where the works are located.

Mr. Moorehead’s exploring party, aided by Dr. H. T. Cresson, began operations at this notable group of mounds in August, 1891, and continued them through about seven months, without interruption, much of the time in severe winter weather. The work was carried on under authority of the Anthropological Department of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, at Chicago. All the most interesting and important of the very extensive body of relics obtained was displayed there; and the whole remains as a permanent exhibit in the Field (Columbian) Museum of Natural History.

The Hopewell group comprises in all some twenty larger and smaller mounds within the general inclosure, besides a few unimportant ones outside of it, and the main connected group in the special inclosure near the center. These latter form together what is known as the Effigy mound, a name based upon its general resemblance to a reclining human figure; but it is not constructed on a human or animal design, as are the effigy mounds properly so called. After working for a time upon some of the others, and finding much interesting material, Mr. Moorehead set his men to work upon the Effigy mound, and spent most of his time and effort upon that remarkable structure, of which he made a very thorough and systematic exploration.

The Effigy mound is about 500 feet long and 220 feet wide, and rises 23 feet above the general surface at its highest point. It proves to belong to the fourth class of Squier and Davis, those of mixed character, with both altars and burials, as it contained three large altars and as many as 175 skeletons, nearly all of adults.

Reviewing now the entire exploration of the Hopewell group, the first mound opened, known as No. 17, was of considerable size, nearly ninety feet in diameter, and was notable for a layer of mica—some 3000 sheets—that extended almost entirely through it. It contained a rude altar, with ashes and bones, some copper implements, bone needles, sharks’ teeth, and nearly 200 pounds of bright galena. The next examined, No. 18, contained several decayed skeletons, and a good example of an “altar,” together with ornaments cut from human skulls. The next, No. 19, had an altar of earth, partially hardened by heat, which was taken out entire and boxed. It was roughly cubical, about three feet each way. In the “bowl,” or concavity, on the top of it, were various minor implements, with some galena and mica, etc. The next attacked was a large mound, No. 2, which had been partly opened by Squier and Davis, nearly fifty years before. It is remarkable for its immense store of roughly chipped flint disks, over 8000 in number, of which 600 were taken out by Squier and Davis, and most of the remainder by Mr. Moorehead. It would seem to have been a place of storage for partly worked material of this kind, to preserve it from the hardening effect of long exposure to the air.

Several other mounds yielded little of importance, save that from the soil on the site of No. 1, which had been obliterated, were taken a number of fragments of bone, curiously ornamented with finely carved patterns. Two others, Nos. 4 and 5, had peculiarly constructed altars, of which an extended account is given.

The first discovery of pearls by Squier and Davis was made in their mound No. 9, now obliterated by a railroad. With the pearls, they report as found on the top of a small altar, broken instruments of obsidian, cut patterns of mica, vestiges of cloth, etc.

Mr. Moorehead’s first discovery of pearls was in a small but interesting mound, No. 20, about forty feet in diameter. It had been reduced by plowing to only some two feet in height; and its contents would ere long have been broken into and scattered by the same process. This was strictly a burial mound, and soon yielded five skeletons, one of them being that of a child, nine or ten years of age. With these bones were numerous objects: two large shells made into cups for drinking, several copper articles and ornaments, among them a broad copper bracelet encircling the right wrist, and several hundred pearl and shell beads and small shells. The same mound yielded later some other children’s remains, but with no important objects. A finely polished pipe and two bear’s teeth coated with copper were also found.

Mr. Moorehead points out the evidences of a long occupation of this site by a cultured tribe, who had commerce with the South and West more than with the North or East.

Work was then begun, in the latter part of September, on a large and important mound known as the Oblong (No. 23), 155 feet long by 100 feet wide, with an elevation at present of 14 feet, and originally of perhaps 20 feet. This mound yielded thirty-nine skeletons, lying at depths varying from eight and three fourths to eleven feet below the present surface, nearly on the base-line of the mound. Some of these were surrounded by boulders, others were much charred, and a good deal of variety exists in their condition, all of which Mr. Moorehead describes particularly. All manner of relics and objects were obtained, including pearl beads and a splendid copper ax of seventeen pounds’ weight, of course entirely too large for any practical use, and hence plainly a ceremonial object or badge of some high distinction. Among the most remarkable of the many interesting objects discovered here were the large canine teeth of bears,^[557] which had not only been drilled through near the base of the root for suspension, like many others, but had also been partly drilled at the middle of one side, and a large pearl inserted into the cavity. These singular ornaments were found at the neck of a skeleton, and had evidently been worn as pendants. It will be remembered that almost identical specimens were found by Professor Putnam in the Marriott mound in the Miami Valley.^[558] The one here figured is now in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, with most of the other Hopewell material.

Another somewhat similar example of the taste and art of the same people, also preserved in the Field Museum, came from the mound known as No. 25. This consisted of a large figure of a bird, in hammered copper, fifteen and seven eighths inches long, with a pearl inserted to form the eye. The head is quite expressive, and the tail-feathers well represented, although the wings and the general proportions are rude. This is shown about one third of the actual length.

The Effigy mound was next examined. The first trial shafts proved it to be evidently of human construction, and not of glacial origin, as some had supposed. One or two open cuts were then begun, using teams with a large shovel until indications of burials were found, when the further work would be carried on by hand, with extreme care.

After about two weeks, in which time several skeletons were unearthed, with some shells, beads, and copper ornaments, a burial of extraordinary character was reached on November 14. Here was lying a skeleton which the newspapers soon reported as “The King of the Mound-Builders.” It was much decayed, but was covered and surrounded with a wealth of relics. The skull was surmounted by a tall cap or helmet of copper, from which extended a wonderful pair of antlers, exactly imitating those of a deer, but made of wood and covered with copper. The whole skeleton, to quote the words of Mr. Moorehead, “glittered with mica, pearl, shell, and copper.” Plates of the latter were above, beneath, and around it, with bears’ and panthers’ teeth, etc., and over 1000 beads, many of them of pearl. The succeeding month, during which the last cut was finished down to the base-line, and a third one much advanced, revealed numerous skeletons, with abundant objects of the same general kind, including a remarkable separate deposit of copper articles of curious workmanship, ornaments of cut mica, and one of cannel coal, fragments of meteoric iron and celts made therefrom, and “many thousand pearl and shell beads.” The latest trophy here unearthed was another enormous ax of copper, nearly two feet in length, unparalleled in the world.

The first altar was next reached; it was about four by five feet, and some six inches deep, and had an immense variety of objects upon it and around it, nearly all entirely ruined by the fire. Among them were pearl beads.

The largest altar had been not only heaped with all sorts of valuables, but they had been piled around it so as to form a sloping mass of twelve feet or more in diameter at the base. Among these was a layer of mica plates of extraordinary size, eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. It is not easy even now to obtain sheets of mica of such dimensions, in any quantity. Carvings and effigies in bone and slate, rock crystal arrow-heads, obsidian knives, etc., etc., damaged and broken by heat, were cemented together by half-melted copper. The pearl and shell beads taken out amid the ashes are estimated at not less than 100,000.

The Effigy mound, “a place for ceremony, for sacrifice, for burial,” as Mr. Moorehead calls it, thus combining the character of the first three classes distinguished by Squier and Davis, is seen not to have been constructed at one time, but to have developed gradually through perhaps a long period. The several altars, the more important burials, the store of copper objects, each was surmounted by a small and separate mound. “These may have been built on the level dance or ceremonial floors, from time to time. When the entire floor was covered, the people brought large quantities of earth and gravel, heaped it on top of the irregular contour of the small mounds, and this formed the present Effigy.”

The population that occupied the main inclosure was apparently not very large, as compared with some other of the important earthworks, such as Fort Ancient, or Madisonville. From the distribution of village-site debris, Mr. Moorehead estimates that there could have been only from two hundred to three hundred lodges, even if these were all occupied at the same time. But the indications of traffic and of art show that it must have been a community advanced in culture beyond most of its neighbors. Mr. Moorehead believes it to have been a sort of capital among a body of allied or affiliated tribes who made and occupied the similar earthwork towns of the “mound belt,”—a center of production and distribution of art objects, and a place for the holding of great religious ceremonials. It may be noted, however, that the art was developed in certain directions and not in others wherein it might be expected. In hammered copper-work and in drilling, it was most remarkable, in the latter extending even to the perforation of quartz crystals, but of pottery there is little, and that not very choice—a striking contrast to the abundant and elaborately ornamental potter’s art of the tribes in the Southwest.

Tonti, the historian of La Salle’s expedition, in the eighteenth century, states that La Salle actually saw mound-dwellers among southern tribes of Indians, living very much as the Ohio mound-builders must have done, and quite untouched as yet by any contact with the whites. Tonti describes the dwellings, made of sun-dried mud and with dome-shaped roofs of cane; two of them were larger and better constructed than the rest, one the chief’s house and the other a temple, both about forty feet square. The latter held the bones of deceased chieftains, and was surmounted by three rude, wooden eagles. In the center was apparently “a kind of altar,” where was maintained a perpetual fire of logs, watched by two aged men. A recess, to which strangers were not admitted, contained the treasures of the tribe, especially pearls from the Gulf, as he was told. The chief returned the visit of La Salle, coming in great state, with attendants, one of whom bore a disk of copper, supposed to represent the sun, the chief’s great ancestor.^[559] The wooden eagles recall the large copper bird taken from mound No. 25 at Hopewell; and the copper disk carried before the chief suggests a similar use for some of the large objects of the same metal. The whole account is extremely interesting in its resemblance to the Ohio remains.

The most complete study of these ancient structures is that of the Harness mound, not far distant from the Hopewell, conducted under the direction of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, in 1905, by their curator and librarian, Prof. William C. Mills.^[560]

The Harness group contains within and about it fourteen mounds; the works as a whole were described by Squier and Davis, on page 56 of their great report (“Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” 1848), and have been frequently mentioned and pictured for their striking form,—a large and perfect circle, opening at one side into a smaller circle and also into an exact square. They are located, like the Hopewell, in Ross County, and stand on a terrace of the Scioto River, nearly a mile from its eastern bank, and about eight miles south of Chillicothe.

The square inclosure measures 1080 feet on each side, and the diameters of the two circles are about 1600 feet for the larger and 650 feet for the smaller. In general character, this group closely resembles the Hopewell: there is the same low wall or embankment, some four feet high, though without any ditch as at Hopewell, and the same problem as to its object. A number of small mounds are placed here and there, and one large and important one recalls the Effigy, though it is somewhat less in size and much more regular in form. In 1846, when Squier and Davis examined it, unfortunately most of the ground was covered with woods; but these are gone, and the works have since been much reduced by tillage and partly obliterated by railroad and other constructions.

The one large mound is named for the recent owner of the property, Mr. Edwin Harness; the present owner, his son, Mr. John M. Harness, aided and facilitated the explorations in every way. This fact, as also in the case of Mr. Hopewell, stands in pleasing and honorable contrast to the narrow policy of some land-owners, who refuse permission for any such work, even when the structures are upon unused and valueless ground.

The large mound is an almost perfect oval in form, 160 feet long and some 80 feet across at its widest point, which is about one third of the way from the northern end; in height it is nearly 20 feet, or was before its recent removal. It was partly explored by Squier and Davis in 1846, and quite extensively by Professor Putnam in 1885, and, unlike the Effigy mound, had been repeatedly opened and examined in a small way by both official and unofficial explorers. In 1896, Mr. W. K. Moorehead took up the work where Professor Putnam had stopped, and carried it considerably further, under the auspices of the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society; and the same body, in 1905, commissioned Mr. Mills to resume and complete the examination, removing the entire structure down to its base.

The Harness mound, unlike the Effigy, was for burial purposes only. There must have been nearly two hundred. Squier and Davis found one of these, and possibly another which they mistook for an “altar”; and they state their belief that the mound probably contained other burials which their two pits had not revealed. Professor Putnam encountered 12 burials, Mr. Moorehead 27, and the final exploration 133, making a total of 174. Besides these, an unknown number have been disturbed and removed by occasional explorers. Of the 174 recorded, only ten had been buried without being burned; the rest were all cremated, some where they were laid, but most of them elsewhere, and the ashes brought and placed in the grave. This was in all cases carefully prepared, within a small inclosure of logs, the decayed and charred remains of which are clearly traceable. The entire mound itself had been outlined with posts set in the ground. the holes and impressions remaining as evidence of the fact.

Mr. Mills outlines the history of this mound, in a way that recalls Mr. Moorehead’s views as to the gradual growth of the Effigy. It began as a place for the holding of funeral rites and the deposit of the dead, marked out by lines of posts, which show that it was from time to time enlarged. Finally, when the place was substantially filled, earth and gravel were deposited over the whole, and slabs of stone (particularly noted by Squier and Davis) were laid around it, upon the lower part of the slope.

Much description is given of the separate graves or burial chambers, which are of several types, and of the various details of the cremated and uncremated interments. The mound is rich in relics, although none of the profuse sacrificial accumulations of the “altars” were encountered, this being a mound of burial only. The relics are of the same kind, in general, as those found in the Hopewell group, and to specify them in detail would be only repetition. From the 133 graves opened in Mr. Mills’s final investigation, no less than 1200 specimens were obtained for the museum of the Archæological Society at Columbus. Among these were artefacts of Lake Superior copper (and some pieces of native silver), large shells from the Gulf, galena, obsidian, and much mica, both in “blocks” and cut into ornaments, all showing the same range of aboriginal commerce as already described at Hopewell. In reference to pearls, the following are the principal observations:

Beads made from Unio pearls were very abundant everywhere in the Harness mound, as also beads of shell. They are found in such position as to show that they were strung and worn around the neck or wrists. One burial (No. 100) had some 2100 pearl beads, all rather small, and some of them perfectly round. Several hundred were obtained, however, that ranged from one quarter to one half an inch in diameter. A number of these are shown of natural size. The larger pearls, instead of being bored through for beads, are frequently somewhat flattened by grinding, and then pierced with two holes so as to attach them to a fabric. Very large ones were sometimes set in copper,—a style of work never observed before. Mr. Mills says of this: “Large and select pearls were flattened upon one side by grinding, and then placed upon a circular disk of copper a little larger than the pearl. The edges were then turned (up) around the pearl, holding it in place. Not only were pearls set in this way, but various pieces of shell cut in a circular form.” Fine examples of this unique style of jewelry, of natural size, and another copper setting of like character, from which the pearl has been lost, are shown in plates facing pages 499 and 510.

More curious still is the discovery of imitation pearls, made of clay, and apparently modeled from real ones as they reproduce all the irregularities of form of the true pearls. They could easily have been made more nearly spherical, as the beads cut from shell are so regular as to look as though made by machinery. These somewhat irregular clay imitations, found with the genuine pearls, were first coated with a pulverent mica and then burned so as to preserve a pearly appearance.

Other forms of art work were abundantly represented in the Harness mound, such as carvings and decorations in stone and bone; a variety of textile fabrics, of which remnants are preserved when they were in contact with plates of copper, the salts of the metal having penetrated the fabric and prevented its entire decay; very skilful work in copper, and to some extent in native silver and meteoric iron; and numerous fragments of pottery, more or less ornamental with simple impressed patterns. The “culture,” as a whole, appears to have been equal, and very similar, to that of the Hopewell community, and these are regarded as having been the most advanced among the Ohio mound-builders; while the term “Fort Ancient culture” is applied to a somewhat lower grade in the matter of arts, which has its chief illustration among the builders and occupants of that celebrated work. By such researches, thus minutely and systematically conducted, there is now beginning to be possible something like a classification of these ancient unknown tribes, which will doubtless be developed more fully, as investigation shall be extended and its results combined and compared.

As to pearls in the mounds of Illinois, we are informed by the veteran archæologist, Dr. J. F. Snyder, that in 1889 he found the skeletons of three adult Indians at the base of a small mound on the bluffs of the Sangomon River in Cass County. These skeletons were in a squatting posture; artefacts—such as greenstone celts, a bicave stone and a heavy pipe—had only been deposited with one of them. Around each wrist and ankle of this skeleton were perforated beads made from Marginella shells, and resting on the sternum was a solitary pearl which had evidently formed the center of a necklace of the same small marine shells. Although much decayed, it still retained something of its original luster. It was spherical, measured approximately seven eighths of an inch in diameter, and was perforated through the middle. Dr. Snyder also states that at the base of one of the large mounds he opened in 1895, in Brown County, on the west side of the Illinois River, he discovered a number of the large canine teeth of the bear, perforated at the roots, so as to be used for necklaces. On the convex side of each tooth were from two to four pits about one third of an inch in diameter, and the same in depth, in which gems had been inserted. Two small pearls were still in place. Near by were the remains of another necklace composed of alternate pearls and bone beads; the latter were oblong and perforated lengthwise. Eight of the pearls were recovered, ranging in diameter from one half to one third of an inch, and pierced through the center, but all were very badly injured by the action of fire.

Mr. David I. Bushnell, who has excavated the McEvers mound in Montezuma, Pike County, Illinois, for the Missouri Historical Society, found in this mound a cyst containing a skeleton six feet in height and also a skull reposing on a bundle of bones near which lay forty-five pearls, one of them weighing fifty-two grains and still showing a beautiful luster. Almost all the objects discovered in the mound will be presented to the Missouri Historical Society. The large pearl would be worth from $12,000 to $15,000 if it were in perfect condition.

We learn from Mr. Richard Herrmann, founder of the Herrmann Museum of Natural History, Dubuque, Iowa, that on the top of the high cliff from Eagle’s Point to its end at McKnight’s Spring, there were formerly a great many mounds which were long ago examined by government experts. Many ancient ornaments were found in these mounds, among them a string of pearls, greatly damaged from having been buried for a long period.^[561] Mr. Herrmann believes that these pearls were taken from the Mississippi River by the mound-builders.

Enough has been said, in this general sketch, to give some idea of the extent to which pearls, largely those from the fresh-water Unios, were gathered and used by the native tribes of North America, from the ancient mound-builders of the Ohio Valley to the Indians encountered by the explorers and colonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The love of pearls shown by the Indians was as noteworthy as was their devotion to their dead and the superstitious mystery which enshrouds their funeral rites; for, when the human sacrifice was consummated, the act was performed in as earnest a spirit of devotion as was shown by Abraham in his readiness to sacrifice Isaac, and the Indians evidenced an almost pathetic sentiment either of reverence, duty, or supernatural dread.

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes writes that in none of his excavations has he ever noted pearls. Haliotis shells, conch shells, and fragments of the same have been found in the great ruins at Casa Grande, Arizona.

Dr. Charles Hercules Read, director of the Department of Archæology of the British Museum, states that the Mexican mosaic masks in the Christy collection, which are pre-Columbian in origin, and probably date hundreds of years in advance of the conquest, prove of special interest from the fact that five of them contain an inlay of mother-of-pearl shell. The first of these is a plain mask in which the eyes are of mother-of-pearl; the second is a dagger having the details of feather-work in mother-of-pearl; the third, a circular shield center having the eyes, teeth, fingers, and toes of the figures in mother-of-pearl; the fourth, a helmet with small pieces of pearl-shell representing collars around the necks of rattlesnakes; and the fifth is a jaguar in the side of which are similar inlays. These masks are described by Dr. Read in “Archæologia,” Society of Antiquaries, London, Vol. LIV, p. 383; in this volume the objects are shown in color. Dr. Read communicates that the pearl jaguar seems to be of more recent execution, but he believes the first four to be original. He is not entirely sure that these objects contain the true mother-of-pearl, the substance having changed so much as to make a decision doubtful even if it were extracted. He states, however, that it is a pearly, nacreous shell, resembling that of the ordinary pearl-oyster. In these masks are also other shells, among them a red shell, probably a spondylus, almost as red as coral. The mother-of-pearl is of special interest as it is quite possible that the shell itself was known, and it may be that pearls also formed part of a commerce that existed between the coast and the interior.