conjectured that a large animal in the upper left-hand corner may be a mammoth, but there is little ground for the supposition. The scene is probably a representation of the exploits of the person buried in the mound. The smaller tablet is evidently a calendar stone with signs of the zodiac regularly marked upon it; of this calendar we shall speak in a future chapter. The above conjectures as to the significance of the representations on these tablets are based upon the supposition that they are genuine and not the work of an impostor, of which we cannot refrain from expressing a slight suspicion. That Rev. Mr. Gass has given a true account of his discovery there cannot be the slightest doubt—that he and his co-laborers in the work of excavation believe them to be genuine is equally certain. [Illustration: The Davenport Tablet.] Descending to the interior, we find the heart of the Mound-builder country in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. It is uncertain whether its vital centre was in Southern Illinois or in Ohio—probably the former because of its geographical situation with reference to the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers. To enter upon a detailed description of the antiquities of this remarkable region would alone more than occupy the entire limits which we have prescribed for this work. This undertaking has already been well performed by Atwater, Squier and Davis, Foster, Baldwin, and many others. We shall therefore confine our remarks to notices of the most conspicuous remains and the general peculiarities of Mound-builder architecture. This people possessed a due appreciation of the physical advantages of certain localities for their cities. The site of St. Louis was formerly covered with mounds, one of which was thirty-five feet high, while in the American bottom on the Illinois side of the river their number approximates two hundred. In a group of sixty or more, lying between Alton and East St. Louis, stands the most magnificent of all the Mound-builders’ works, the great Mound of Cahokia, which rises to a height of ninety-seven feet and extends its huge mass in the form of a parallelogram, with sides measuring 700 and 500 feet respectively. On the south-west there was a terrace 160 by 300 feet, reached by means of a graded way. The summit of the pyramid is truncated, affording a platform of 200 by 450 feet. Upon this platform stands a conical mound ten feet high. Dr. Foster remarks: “It is probable that upon this platform was reared a capacious temple, within whose walls the high-priests gathered from different quarters at stated seasons, celebrating their mystic rites, whilst the swarming multitude below looked up with mute adoration.”[28] When we consider the analogy between the general features of this pyramid and that on which the temple of Mexico was situated, it is not unnatural to reflect that Cahokia may have served as the prototype of the more magnificent structure which was so often deluged with the