life, and its unreserved freedom of women. Nothing corresponding to the geometrical enclosures or altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley appears among the works of any Indian nation known to Europeans. Nevertheless in searching for evidence of their ethnical affinities, we are naturally led to inquire if no traces of their peculiar rites and customs can be detected in the ruder practices of savage nations found in occupation of their deserted sites; and some of those in use by different Indian tribes undoubtedly suggest ideas such as may have animated the ancient people of the valley in the construction and use of their mounds of sacrifice. One class of mound relics, for example, is thus illustrated in Hariot’s narrative of the discovery of Virginia in 1584. He describes the use of tobacco, called by the natives _uppówoc_, and greatly enlarges on its medicinal virtues. He then adds: “This _uppówoc_ is of so precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith, whereupon sometime they make hallowed fires, and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice.” The discovery of unmistakable evidence that one of the sacred altars of “Mound City” was specially devoted to nicotian rites and offerings, renders such allusions peculiarly significant. In the belief of the ancient worshippers, the Great Spirit smelled a sweet savour in the smoke of the sacred plant; and the homely implement of modern luxury became in their hands a sacred censer, from which the vapour rose with as fitting propitiatory odours as that which perfumes the awful precincts of the cathedral altar, amid the mysteries of the Church’s high and holy days.