The Indians make a roof of light wood or pitch-pine over the graves of the more distinguished, covering it with bark and then with earth, leaving the body thus in a subterranean vault until the flesh quits the bones. The bones are then taken up, cleaned, jointed, clad in white-dressed deerskins, and laid away in the _Quiogozon_, which is the royal tomb or burial-place of their kings and war-captains, being a more magnificent cabin reared at the public expense. This Quiogozon is an object of veneration, in which the writer says he has known the king, old men, and conjurers to spend several days with their idols and dead kings, and into which he could never gain admittance. Another class of mummies are those which have been found in the saltpetre and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a matter of doubt with archæologists whether any special pains were taken to preserve these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the soil with certain minerals would account for the condition in which the specimens were found. Charles Wilkins[32] thus describes one: * * * An exsiccated body of a female[33] * * * was found at the depth of about 10 feet from the surface of the cave bedded in clay strongly impregnated with nitre, placed in a sitting posture, incased in broad stones standing on their edges, with a flat atone covering the whole. It was enveloped in coarse clothes, * * * the whole wrapped in deer-skins, the hair of which was shaved off in the manner in which the Indians prepare them for market. Enclosed in the stone coffin were the working utensils, beads, feathers, and other ornaments of dress which belonged to her. The next description is by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill.[34*] AUG. 24th, 1815. DEAR SIR: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of American antiquity now in New York. It is a human body: found in one of the limestone caverns of Kentucky. It is a perfect desiccation; all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and other firm parts are in a state of entire preservation. I think it enough to have puzzled Bryant and all the archæologists. This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the neighborhood of Glasgow for saltpetre.