There was a large cairn, above forty feet in height, placed a few miles south of the town, which was destroyed about the middle of the present century in order to obtain materials for constructing a portion of the banks of a canal. When the stones were removed, fifteen small mounds composed of earth were discovered ranged in a circle at some distance from the centre, and near the outer part of the base. There was also a central mound which contained a quantity of human bones. In one of the outer mounds the explorers saw a hollow wooden trough, in which was a skeleton and several rings made of copper. I examined some fragments of this trough that were preserved in the Museum. The wood was black and very hard. It was considered that the mounds beneath the cairn contained earth that must have been brought from a distance. This singular fact is in accordance with what has been observed in other Indian works, and probably has a special significance. Judging from the character of the relics that have been discovered in the Ohio mounds,[16] it does not appear that there is any reason to justify the conclusion that the Mound Builders differed in their condition of civilisation from the other Indian tribes. The consideration of this subject has been made perplexing in consequence of the existence of the numerous burial places of the tribes who were settled in this region after the arrival of the Europeans. In several mounds were found gunbarrels, silver crosses and other objects which are undoubtedly of foreign workmanship. The crosses were usually placed upon the breasts of the skeletons, and from this circumstance it is probable that they belonged to Indians who had been converted by the French missionaries. After I had seen the principal burial places of the Mound Builders, I proceeded to look at the largest and most important group of that class of earthworks, which were considered by Messrs. Squier and Davis, who surveyed them in 1845, to have been raised for the purpose of religious ceremonial, and who accordingly called them sacred inclosures. It has also been conjectured that they may have been fortified camps.