Catlin, speaking of the Mandan Indians, says the women of that tribe made great quantities of dishes and bowls, modeled after many forms. He says they are so strong and serviceable that they cook food in them by hanging them over the fire, as we would an iron pot. “I have seen specimens,” he continues, “which have been dug up in Indian mounds and tombs in the Southern and Middle States, placed in our Eastern museums, and looked upon as a great wonder, when here this novelty is at once done away with, and the whole mystery: where women can be seen handling and using them by hundreds, and they can be seen every day in the summer, also, moulding into many fanciful forms, and passing them through the kilns, where they are hardened.” Dr. Rau, speaking of the artistic skill of the Indian potters, as shown by numerous remains gathered in Illinois, does not hesitate to assert, after personal examination of Mound Builders’ pottery, that the Indian relics were in every respect equal to those specimens exhumed from the mounds of the Mississippi Valley.100 Lapham, speaking of fragments of Mound Builders’ pottery in Wisconsin, says, “They agree in every respect with fragments found about the old Indian villages.” The culture of a people is also determined by their knowledge of agriculture. The savage depends entirely upon hunting and fishing for subsistence. A knowledge of horticulture, of domestic animals, and of agriculture, even though rude, are each and all potent factors in advancing man in culture. So we must inquire as to the traces of agricultural knowledge observable among the remains of the Mound Builders. Some writers speak in quite glowing terms of the enormous crops they must have raised for their populous cities. The fact is, that while it is doubtless true that they practiced agriculture, yet we have no reason to suppose it was any thing more than a rude tillage, such as was practiced among the village Indian tribes. This is evident from the tools with which they worked. Agricultural Implements. (Smith. Inst.)