But it is to the exploration of one of the smaller hill-mounds that we owe the recovery of the most characteristic illustration of the physical type of the ancient Mound-Builders. The “Scioto Mound Cranium,” described in a later chapter, was obtained from a mound erected on the summit of a commanding height overlooking the valley of the Scioto, with its numerous earthworks. A conical knoll, crowning the hill, rises with such regularity as almost to induce the belief that it is artificial; and on its apex stands the tumulus overshadowed by the trees of the primitive forest. Here under a covering of tough yellow clay, impervious to moisture, a plate of mica rested on an inner cairn, composed chiefly of large rough stones; and within this, a compacted bed of carbonaceous matter contained the skull, with a few bones, and some shells of fresh-water molluscs, disposed irregularly round it. This, therefore, it will be seen, confirms the idea that cremation played an important part in the ancient sepulchral rites. More recently Professor O. C. Marsh explored the Taylor Mound, another of the hill-mounds, about two and a half miles south of Newark. Apparently a cemetery had been excavated on the summit of the ridge, within which lay the remains of at least eight skeletons, chiefly of women and children, all huddled together, and some of them showing evidence of long exposure. Along with those were found nine lance or arrow-heads of flint, six small axes, one of them made of hematite, and the remainder of diorite or compact greenstone, a small wedge or hatchet of hematite, a flint chisel, a scraper, numerous implements of bone and horn, including needles, a spatula or modeller’s tool, and a whistle made from the tooth of a black bear. Above this ossuary a number of dead had been disposed: some of them evidently interred with care, others as if slaughtered and flung upon the heap of dead; while a mass of incinerated human remains left no doubt on the minds of the explorers that cremation had taken place directly over the dead, and before the regular interment was completed. Hence they were led to the conclusion that the funeral rites had probably included a suttee sacrifice. Directly under the apex of the mound upwards of one hundred beads of native copper, intermingled with a few shell beads, lay in contact with portions of the cervical vertebræ of a young child, showing that they had been worn as a necklace. The shell beads are about half an inch long, and have been carefully polished. The copper beads are only half this length, and wrought with the hammer out of the native copper; but with so much skill, that in most of them it is difficult to detect the joining. Only two of the skulls were sufficiently preserved to indicate their true form. Both were small, and showed the vertical occiput and large parietal diameter, supposed to pertain to the Mound-Builders, but which are characteristic of many American crania.