The author of this work is well known, not only as the editor of the _American Antiquarian_, but as a careful explorer of aboriginal monuments in the Northwest. His attention has not been limited, however, to the results of personal observation; he has utilised the researches of other explorers, and is thus able to present to his readers an amazing amount of information, which is rendered doubly valuable by the profuse use of maps and illustrations. The points which Mr. Peet has sought to bring out in his book are, that (1) the works described as effigies were imitations of the wild animals which were once common in the region where they are found, which is chiefly in Wisconsin and Ohio, and were also totemic in their character; (2) the effigies were used for practical purposes, such as screens for hunters, guards for villages, foundations for houses, heaps on which sentinels were stationed; (3) they embodied "certain superstitions and customs which are rarely found, but which are suggestive of the religious system prevalent in prehistoric times." The consideration of the first and second of these points does not come within our province, but it will be interesting to see what light the curious monuments described throw on the religious ideas of the aborigines. Mr. Peet states that the location of the effigies gives the idea of the prevalence among their builders of a kind of nature-worship. They are closely associated with the natural features of the earth, "the streams and lakes, hills and valleys, woods and prairies," being overshadowed by them. The animals represented were divinities to the people, and the effigies were intended to be symbols of such divinities, associated for particular reasons with special localities. In support of this view, Mr. Peet refers to the fact that the "myths which fix upon scenes in nature are those which remind one of the animal divinities which were worshipped. The figure of the moose and the turtle and other animals have been recognised in certain strange and contorted figures in the rocks and mountains, and myths have been connected with them, the myth having evidently been made to account for the resemblances." The most remarkable example of this kind is the great serpent mound of Adams County, Ohio. Serpent mounds are found in various other localities, and usually they correspond with the natural features of the ground on which they are placed.