Note 82 — Chapter I

Dr. S. S. Schoville, in the Cincinnati Quarterly Journal of Science, April, 1875, p. 164, describes the discovery of numerous mica plates in a mound on the east bank of the Little Miami River, about twenty-five miles east of Cincinnati. He states, that at the base of the mound, on a level with the surrounding country, the remains of several skeletons were found, placed with their heads together and lying in a horizontal position. “Lying upon or immediately over the cranial debris, were found plates of mica, some a foot in diameter. These plates were disposed in such a way as to cover an area somewhat larger than that occupied by the crania beneath. However, it could not definitely be determined whether the design had been to make a continuous or common roof over the faces as a group, or whether each face had a covering of its own.” The writer ventures the rather fanciful conjecture that the mica in this and many other cases served the purpose of exhibiting temporarily the features of the dead in the manner that glass is now used on caskets.