Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley - Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 117-166 by Henry W. (Henry Wetherbee) Henshaw
page 33 of 64 (51%)
page 33 of 64 (51%)
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_ibid._, p. 272), Wilson states.
No question can exist as to the tropical and marine origin of the large shells exhumed not only in the inland regions of Kentucky and Tennessee, but in the northern peninsula lying between the Ontario and Huron Lakes, or on the still remoter shores and islands of Georgian Bay, at a distance of upwards of three thousand miles from the coast of Yucatan, on the mainland, _the nearest point where the Pyrula perversa is found in its native locality_. (Italics of the present writer.) Now the plain facts on the authority of Mr. Dall are that the _Busycon (Pyrula) perversa_ is not only found in the United States, but extends along the coast up to Charleston, S.C., with rare specimens as far north as Beaufort, N.C. Moreover, archæologists have usually confounded this species with the _Busycon carica_, which is of common occurrence in the mounds. The latter is found as far north as Cape Cod. The facts cited put a very different complexion on the presence of these shells in the mounds. OTHER ERRORS OF IDENTIFICATION. [Illustration: Fig. 20.--"Owl," from Squier and Davis.] The erroneous identification of the manatee, the toucan, and of several other animals having been pointed out, it may be well to glance at certain others of the sculptured animal forms, the identification of which by Squier and Davis has passed without dispute, with a view to determining how far the accuracy of these authors in this particular |
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