One altar contained about two bushels of ornaments made of stone, mica, shells, pearls, and the teeth of bears and other animals. Pearls were so plentiful, indeed, that as many as sixty thousand are in the possession of the museum. They seem to have been derived mainly, if not wholly, from the fresh-water mussels, and are of all shapes and sizes, out of which might be selected hundreds of perfect spheres, from the size of bird-shot to that of a cherry. What splendid necklaces must the latter have made! But, alas for the mercenary collector, all are ruined by fire,--a fact advantageous to science. Like nearly all the other objects, every pearl is perforated for suspension.
Articles of copper are none too common anywhere, and the collection of relics hammered from that native metal (which must have been obtained, through barter, from the tribes that mined it on Lake Superior, showing how extensive were the tradings of those days) has not only thrown much light on this branch of ancient art and craftsmanship in America generally, but added some peculiar forms to the museum's stock, chiefly in the line of pendent ornaments. One of the forms procured, represented by many specimens, was a spool-shaped ear-ring: something like it had been seen heretofore, but its purpose had been a mystery. Several of the ornaments of copper were covered with native silver, which had been hammered out into thin sheets and folded over the copper. A few were similarly covered with gold; and this is the first time this metal has been found in the mounds.
This would show that beauty was highly appreciated by the natives of the Little Miami valley, say, a thousand years ago. That they had a real regard for art, in advance of what has usually been accorded to the red men of the Northern States, is evident from other contents of these two altar-mounds. One altar contained several sheets of mica and thin plates of copper out of which had been cut some designs in scroll-work which for symmetry and elegance of curve merit a high place; also heads of animals and a grotesque human profile, which are of less worth, but notable in the dearth heretofore of things of that sort among _relicta_ from the mounds.