The archæology of Illinois is an inviting subject, because it is full of promise. I do not know of another state or territory in the Union which has before it a prospect equalling that offered here by the Cahokia group of mounds in Madison and St. Clair counties. Here is a group of seventy-two mounds, one of them the largest remaining work of the ancients north of Mexico, and the group itself unquestionably marking the site of the metropolis of our country in ancient_time, which is yet to be explored. If the archæologists working in Egypt had not yet explored the pyramids of Gizeh, and those working in Mexico had not yet explored the Temple of the Sun, the status of archæology in those fields would be analogous to that in Illinois at this time, when we have not yet explored the great Cahokia group. This does not mean that for almost a hundred years they have not been gophered at, for they have been the scene of desultory exploration from the time of Brackenridge, in 1811, until now. It does not mean that they have not been studied upon the exterior by a great many scientists and students, for they have long been the object of a great deal of learned attention. It does not mean that they have not yielded anything to the science of archæology in either a local or comparative sense, for we regard them today as the nearest approach to written history left in the Mississippi valley by the people who built mounds for other purposes than for mere burial. It does not mean that they have not contributed a great deal to our archæological collections, for the immediate vicinity of the Cahokia mounds, and some of the mounds themselves, have been for years and continue today a fertile field for collectors.

What it does mean is that the archæology of Illinois, and that of the whole country as well, has not opened the most promising page of the book when the Cahokia group remains without thorough exploration; when the great mound which is the chief glory of the group remains unopened, and when the several huge. table-like tumuli in the group have scarce been explored deeper than the reach of the ploughshare.

It is almost alarming to think that Illinois archæology may continue much longer to drift in the aimless fashion which has characterized it since the importance of the Cahokia mounds became known. We have seen the hope of complete preservation irreparably lost. The vandal and the farmer have worked wonders in obliteration. We have seen the height of all the big table mounds diminish steadily every year. We have seen the most beautiful and conical mound in the group divested of its head by men who, for all the care they took to preserve the configuration of the mound, might have been digging for worms. We have seen the kind-faced, but sharp-hoofed cow climb over the precious face of the great Cahokia mound, until that priceless pyramid exposes trails and spots so vulnerable to the forces of erosion that every rain sees something of its immensity descend in solution and every year sees it lose some part of its perishable configuration.

If the great Cahokia mound belonged to the Illinois Historical Society and enjoyed its protection, what a comfort it would be to those of us that tremble for its future! The Serpent mound of Ohio

belongs to the Ohio Historical Society, Colorado has induced the government to take over her cliff dwellings. The government has stretched forth its strong arm at Casa Grande and many other places in the wonderland of the west. What of the Cahokia pyramid, lest it perish? It is so much greater than much that has been protected in other states and made inviolate forever! It is so much more important to science and education than the Serpent mound of Ohio, the old pueblos of Arizona, or even the cliff dwellings in Colorado, wonderful as they are!

For a State which has had within her confines some of the most distinctive records of the ancients, Illinois has an absolutely shameful record as to their preservation. We formerly had in this State the masterpiece of the ancient American pictographers. This was the Piasa Bird, which decorated the face of a Mississippi river bluff at Alton. The Piasa Bird was quarried down in the winter of 1846-7 and burned for lime. Our sole and feeble plea in extenuation is that if it had not been quarried down, it would probably have disappeared by this time, as St. Cosme, who saw it in 1699, said it was even then very faint; and Russell, who saw it in the 1830's, says the Indians had almost entirely destroyed it with their bullets and arrows. But our experience with these pictographs along the Mississippi sadly weakens this defense. There is a group of them three miles above the spot where the Piasa was quarried down which my father sketched when he came to Illinois in the middle of the last century. He thought they could not long endure. But those of them which have not been carried away by natural falls in the bluff or cut out by collecting vandals are there today to delight us, and in my judgment they will continue there for many generations to see them, granting only they receive the protection denied the Piasa.

I am not going to suggest the way in which the great Cahokia mound might be taken over to that protective care it deserves, but I want to emphasize the urgent need that this be done. It belongs today to Mrs. Ramey, whose husband in his time gave to its preservation a great deal of care and thought. Mrs. Ramey is a very aged lady, and if, at her death, it should fall into other hands, we shudder to think of the possibilities, although they are not probabilities. Mr. D. I. Bushnell of St. Louis has made the only serious effort to purchase the mound of which I have any knowledge. He one time offered Mrs. Ramey $10,000 for it. She asked $100,000, and he has recently told me that since then she has increased her valuation by $50,000. Mr. Bushnell's proposition, which was made as the representative of other interests, was that he purchase eighteen acres. The mound covers slightly more than sixteen, leaving but a slight margin around the base in an eighteen-acre tract. From what I have recently seen over there, the big mound is the only one in the group sufficiently preserved to hope for any great financial outlay to preserve it. But two excavations of any extent have ever been made in the big mound. One of these was for a well, and penetrated forty feet through the west apron of the mound. The other was a short tunnel in the north end a little higher than half way up. This tunnel was made for the purpose of