Discoidal stones, somewhat varying in form and size, are common in the valley of the Ohio, and throughout the Southern States. Messrs. Squier and Davis figure two examples found by them along with an unusually rich deposit of choice relics, including several coiled serpents carved in stone, and carefully enveloped in sheet mica and copper, under a mound within the great earthwork of Paints Creek. The discoidal stones found there are made of a very dense ferruginous stone, of a dark brown ground interspersed with specks of yellow mica. Others are of granite, porphyry, jasper, greenstone, and quartz, sometimes with concave surfaces, or perforated with a funnel-shaped hollow on either side; but always of a hard stone, and highly polished. One fine specimen in the collection of Dr. Byrnes is of polished novaculite, and another of quartz. The largest are about six inches in diameter, and are generally finished with great symmetry. There is no doubt that such implements were employed among the Southern Indians, subsequent to their being visited by Europeans, in certain favourite games. Adair describes their use; and adds that they were so highly valued “that they were kept with the strictest religious care from one generation to another; and were exempted from being buried with the dead.” It may be that in some of them we have implements used in the games which formed a prominent part in the sacred festivities, for which it is assumed that the great geometrical earthworks were constructed. Indeed the perfect symmetry of form in the majority of this class of relics seems to accord with the idea of their having been fashioned by the race who have left such gigantic memorials of their regard for geometrical configuration. One perforated discoidal stone, of polished granite, which I examined at Cincinnati, was dug up by Dr. J. H. Hunt, within a large earthwork at Cleves, near the great Miami River; and another in the possession of Dr. Byrnes was found in the vicinity of one of the great mounds on the Ohio.