The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within a fine basin of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its older occupants the remarkable people now referred to. But the growth of the modern city has swept away every vestige of their old earthworks; and no definite record of their details has been preserved. One memorial, however, survives, which was discovered in 1841, when excavating a large mound within the limits of the city. It has been the subject of ingenious speculations; and may have some bearing on our present investigations. In the centre of the mound, slightly below the level of the natural surface, a skeleton was found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of the elk, and the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 71). It is made of fine-grained sandstone, and measures five inches in length, by two and six-tenths across the middle, and three inches at the ends. Upon its smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sinking the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to produce what has been regarded by some as a hieroglyphic inscription. But the most remarkable feature of its graven device is the series of lines by which the plain surface at each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will be observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The greater arc is divided by a series of lines, twenty-seven in number, into equal spaces, and within this is another series of seven oblique lines. The lesser arc at the opposite end is divided in like manner by two series of twenty-five and eight lines, similarly arranged. This tablet has not failed to receive due attention. It has been noted that it bears a “singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche.” Its series of lines were discovered to yield, in the sum of the products of the longer and shorter ones, a near approximation to the number of days of the year. An astronomical origin was accordingly assigned to it; and it has been surmised to be an ancient calendar, recording the approximation of the Mound-Builders to the true length of the solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps runs to an opposite extreme in suggesting that it is nothing more than a stamp, of which specimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico and in the Mississippi mounds; and which were probably used in impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared skins. Such clay stamps always betray their purpose by the handle attached to them, as in the corresponding bronze stamps common on Roman sites; whereas the Cincinnati tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished reverse grooves apparently made in sharpening the tools by which it was engraved. But whatever theory be adopted as to its original object or destination, the series of lines on its two ends have justly attracted