from them--that the mounds are memorials of a vanished people--the
"Ke-te-anish-i-na-be," or "very ancient men." The oldest Hudson's Bay
officer, and the most intelligent of the native people, born in the
country, can only give some vague story of their connection with a
race who perished with small-pox, but who, or whence, or of what
degree of civilization they were, no clue is left.

It must be said moreover that a perusal of the works written about the
mounds, especially of the very large contributions to the subject
found in the Smithsonian Institution publications, leaves the mind of
the reader in a state of thorough confusion and uncertainty. Indeed,
the facts relating to the Mound Builders are as perplexing a problem
as the purpose of the Pyramids, or the story of King Arthur.

Is it any wonder that we hover about the dark mystery, and find in our
researches room for absorbing study, even though we cannot reach
absolute certainty? Could you have seen the excitement which prevailed
among the half-dozen settlers, I had employed in digging the mound on
Rainy River, in August last, when the perfect pottery cup figured
below was found, and the wild enthusiasm with which they prosecuted
their further work, you would have said it requires no previous
training, but simply a successful discovery or two to make any one a
zealous mound explorer.

A MOUND DESCRIBED.

A mound of the kind found in our region is a very much flattened cone,
or round-topped hillock of earth. It is built usually, if not
invariably where the soil is soft and easily dug, and it is generally
possible to trace in its neighborhood the depression whence the mound