Similar layers of charcoal constitute a noticeable feature in mounds of this class, and seem to indicate either that sacrifices were performed over the bier, or that funeral rites of some kind were celebrated, in which fire played an important part. On these funeral pyres probably many perishable articles were consumed; as the beds of charcoal are intermingled occasionally with fragments of bone, stone implements, and other evidences of sacrifices and tribute to the deceased. It is also apparent that the fire was kindled and allowed to blaze only for a limited time, when its flames were quenched by heaping the earth over the glowing embers; so that while charcoal occurs beneath as well as above the skeleton, the bones are unaffected by fire. The rite was practised where cremation was not followed; and may have been symbolical of the lamp of life quenched for ever in the grave. Implements, both of stone and metal, have been found in these grave-mounds, but for the most part their contents indicate a different condition of society and mode of thought from what Indian sepulture implies. Weapons are of rare and exceptional occurrence. The more common articles are personal ornaments, such as bracelets, perforated plates of copper, beads of bone, shell, or metal, and similar decorations worn on the body at the time of its interment. Among the objects which appear to have been purposely disposed around the dead, plates of mica occur most frequently. In some cases the skeleton has been found entirely covered with this material; and in others the laminæ have been cut into regular figures: disks, ovals, and symmetrical curves. As a general rule, however, it would appear that reverence for the dead was manifested in other ways than by depositing costly gifts in the grave; nor do the relics found indicate any belief akin to that which induces the modern Indian to lay beside his buried chief the arms and weapons of the chase, for use by him in the future hunting-grounds or on the war-path. In a few cases the simple sarcophagus has been constructed of stone instead of wood; in others the body appears to have been merely wrapped in bark or matting. In some of the Southern States both cremation and urn-burial seem to have been practised; but throughout the valleys of the Ohio and its tributaries a nearly uniform system of sepulchral rites has been traced. These no doubt bore some important relation to the solemn religious observances indicated by other works of the same people; and as it is not in the sepulchral mounds, but in those which cover the “altars” on which the sacrificial fires of the ancient worshippers appear to have often blazed, that the greater number of their works of art, and even their implements and weapons have been found: it may be that there, rather than at the grave-mounds, they propitiated the manes of the dead, and sought by sacrifices of love and reverence to reach beyond this world to one unseen.