The tobacco pipes of the region were lauded as perfect examples of the sculptor’s art, but if one gives them critical examination, it is at once plain that they are not out of the Amerind line, and, what is more, that as specimens of sculpture they are pretty bad, because it is difficult to decide just what they represent. Even the Eskimo give their work character enough to distinguish it, yet the Moundbuilder did much of his carving so poorly that there has been frequent diversity of opinion as to what it was intended to depict. Henshaw took up the matter, and has shown that the degree of excellence of representation in the carving of the Moundbuilder pipes, so long extolled, has been overrated. [Illustration: STONE PIPE FROM NORTH CAROLINA MOUND] The tobacco pipe, bearing, as it did, a peculiar relation to the sacred paraphernalia and ceremonies of the Amerinds, received much attention from them and was frequently elaborate, from the Amerind standpoint, in its details. The earliest form of pipe was a straight tube seen in Mexican carvings and also found in various parts of North America. In the Eastern United States one is found which is designated as the “Monitor.” I suppose this name came from a resemblance to the famous first turret man-of-war, the United States ship _Monitor_. The base of these pipes was slightly curved downwards, the bowl rising from about the centre of the platform, on the convex side. Many of these show marks of steel tools.[153] Squier and Davis, who published their work in 1848, discerned wonderful artistic skill in the Moundbuilder pipes, and they discovered an intimate acquaintance between the Moundbuilder artists and far-off tropical birds and animals, probably because in those days it was thought that an “Indian” was absolutely incapable of producing anything. Especially was great stress laid by Squier and Davis upon certain pipes said to delineate the manatee. Theories of origin and migration were founded on this supposed knowledge, and other writers accepting these deductions founded yet other theories upon them; and they were _all_ wrong. The trouble seems to lie in the fact that the archæologists of some years ago not only were not naturalists, but they were not accurate and drew their conclusions from insufficient data. The attitude of the archæologist of to-day is exceedingly cautious, and before pronouncing a pipe carving a manatee, or any other animal, he would surely institute cautious and careful comparisons. This Messrs. Squier and Davis seem not to have done, nor did any of their followers or successors, being content, as Henshaw points out, to accept Squier and Davis’s statement as absolute. Henshaw demolishes their claims and shows that no manatee is represented and that all the pipe carvings are of birds and animals that had their range in the country of the Moundbuilders or not far from its borders. What they called a toucan he identifies as a crow, or raven, and in this decision