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Fig. 1 represents a profile of the simplest form and at the same time the smallest size of these stones, being in diameter about an inch and three quarters. The upper and under surfaces are nearly plane, with angular edges and oblique margin, but without concavity or perforation.

Fig. 2. A similar form, slightly concave on each surface.

Fig. 3. A large disk of white quartz, measuring five inches in diameter and an inch and three fourths in thickness. The margin is rounded, and both surfaces are deeply concave though imperforate.

Fig. 4 is another specimen four inches in diameter, deeply concave from the margin to the center, with a central perforation. The margin itself is slightly convex. The concave surface is marked by two sets of superficial grooved lines, which meet something in the form of a bird-track. This disk is made of a light-brown ferruginous quartz.

Fig. 5 is a profile view of a solid lenticular stone, much more convex on the one side than the other, formed of hard syenitic rock.

Besides these there are other slight modifications of form which it is unnecessary to particularize.

These disks are made of the hardest stones, and wrought with admirable symmetry and polish, surpassing any thing we could readily conceive of in the humbler arts of the present Indian tribes; and the question arises, whether they are not the works of their seemingly extinct progenitors?—of that people of the same race, (but more directly allied to the Toltecans of Mexico,) who appear in former times to have constituted populous and cultivated communities throughout the valley of the Mississippi, and in the southern and western regions towards the gulf of Mexico, and whose last direct and lineal representatives were the ill-fated Natchez?

I have made much inquiry as to the localities of these and analogous remains, but hitherto with little success. I am assured that they have been found in Missouri, perhaps near St. Louis; and in very rare instances in the northern part of Delaware. Dr. Ruggles has sent me the plaster model of a small, perforated, but irregularly formed stone of this kind, taken from an ancient Indian grave at Fall River in Rhode Island; but Dr. Edwin H. Davis, of Chilicothe, in a letter recently received from him, informs me that he had obtained, during his excavations in that vicinity, no less than “two hundred flint disks in a single mound, measuring from three and a half to five inches in diameter, and from half an inch to an inch in thickness, of three different forms, round, oval and triangular.” These appear, however, to be of a different construction and designed for some other use than those I have described; and Dr. Davis himself offers the probable suggestion, that “they were rude darts blocked out at the quarries for easy transportation to the Indian towns.” The same gentleman speaks of having found other disks formed of a micaceous slate, of a dark color and highly polished. These last appear to correspond more nearly to those we have indicated in the above diagrams.

Besides these disks, I have met with a few spheroidal stones, about three inches in diameter. One of these accompanies the disks from South Carolina, and is marked with a groove to receive the thumb in throwing it. A similar but ruder ball is contained among the articles found by Mr. Atwater in the mound near Huron, Ohio.

What was the use of the disks in question? Those who have examined the series in my possession have offered various explanations; but the only one that seems in any degree plausible, is that of my friend Dr. Blanding, who supposes them to have been used in a game analogous to that of the quoits of the Europeans. It is a curious fact that discoidal stones much resembling these have been found in Scandinavia;17-* whence I was at first led to suppose it possible, especially in consideration of their apparently circumscribed occurrence in this country, that they might have been introduced here by the Northmen; a conjecture that seems to lose all foundation since these relics have been found as far west as the Mississippi.

Note.—Since the preceding remarks were written, I have received from my friend, Mr. William A. Foster, of Lima, ten skulls and two entire mummied bodies from the Peruvian cemetery at Arica. “This cemetery,” observes Mr. Foster, “lies on the face of a sandhill sloping towards the sea. The external surface occupied by these tombs, as far as we explored, I should say was five or six acres. In many of the tombs three or four bodies were found clustered together, always in the sitting posture, and wrapped in three or four thicknesses of cloth, with a mat thrown over all.”

These crania possess an unusual interest, inasmuch as, with two exceptions, they present the horizontally elongated form, in every degree from its incipient stage to its perfect development.

By what contrivance has the rounded head of the Indian been moulded into this fantastic shape? I have elsewhere17-† offered some explanations of this subject; but the present series of skulls throws yet more light on it, and enables me to indicate the precise manner in which this singular object has been attained.

It is evident that the forehead was pressed downwards and backwards by two compresses, (probably a folded cloth,) one on each side of the frontal suture, which was left free; a fact that explains the cause of the ridge, which, in every instance, replaces that suture by extending from the root of the nose to the coronal suture. To keep these compresses in place, a bandage was carried over them from the base of the occiput obliquely forwards; and then, in order to confine the lateral portions of the skull, the same bandage was continued by another turn over the top of the head, immediately behind the coronal suture, and probably with an intervening compress; and the bandaging was repeated over these parts until they were immovably confined in the desired position.

Every one who is acquainted with the pliable condition of the cranial bones at birth, will readily conceive how effectually this apparatus would mould the head in the elongated or cylindrical form; for, while it prevents the forehead from rising, and the sides of the head from expanding, it allows the occipital region an entire freedom of growth; and thus without sensibly diminishing the volume of the brain, merely forces it into a new though unnatural direction, while it preserves, at the same time, a remarkable symmetry of the whole structure. The following outline of one of these skulls, will further illustrate my meaning; merely premising that the course of the bandages is in every instance distinctly marked by a corresponding cavity of the bony structure, excepting on the forehead, where the action of a firm compress has left a plane surface.

This conformation, as we have already observed, was prevalent among the old Aymara tribes which inhabited the shores