Morning journal and courier., 1881-06-25
Price Four Cents.

much mutilation, but still many thousands
 that have served for years as ornaments are now once more in circulation. They are re- ceiyed at the sub bTreasury by weight only and mutilated silver coins are not received at all.
 While the ''coin shavers. as they are called, are making money quickly and easily, another and more dangerous class of crimin- als are inhicting great damage upon the pa-
 per currency of the country. These deal mostly with national bank notes and occa- sionally with legal tenders. They take five dollar notes and Cut them up into longitudin- al strips, having the top part of one note
 intact. Upon this they paste piece after piece of the other notes, using very thin
 tissue paper to hold the edges together By this process, repeated over and over again.
 the five notes are made to do duty
 as SIX, and so well are the pieces joined that no one but an expert would detect the
 swlndle at a glance. Sometimes, especially
 in legal tenders, the notes are shortened and the pieces are cut crosswise These notes should have numbers at top and bottom to
 correspond, and their detection requires no
 extraordinary skill. Six $1O notes are ire
 quently made by cutting up five, but as vet no attempt has been made to utilize the larger
 denominations in this business All the notes
 yet stamped at the sub-Treasury as false
 bear traces of the skillful workmanship of
 one man, and the paper used is in all cases
 the same. One note Ca $5) has been passing
 from hand to hand for months, with the name
 Of one national bank at the top and that of
 another at the bottom. There are frequent
 complaints that the national bank notes are
 badly printed and that the paper used is of
 inferior quality. It is hard in many cases for
 an expert to tell the bad from the good. In
 the $100 notes of the different banks there is
 no uniformity in the colors of the ink used
 or In the general style, although the engrav-
 ing on all is the same
 The Prehistoric Mounds of the West.
 [Chicago Tribune1
 The high bluffs and banks of the Mississip
 pi river in this section are dotted with mounds symmetrically built, and ranging from three to six feet in height and from to 16 feet in breadth at the base. Your corre- spondent has assisted in exploring dozen or more mounds in this neighborhood, and in almost every instance a pit, parallelogram in shape, has been found dug evidently about two and half feet below the original surface of the ground, about six feet long and four feet wide. with the bottom and sides of hard baked clay. These pits are filled with human bones. representing all ages, buried in most cases in sitting posture against the sides with legs extending to the center. Over these bones are found layers of anhydrous earth of dark color, hard from pressure, but which easily crumbled into fine powder. Above this is 8 stratum of hard baked clay or cement, on the top of which is found layer of ashes mingled with burnt shells and bones. In one mound unearthed on what is called the Por- tage, short distance west of this city, were found bones indicating race of gigantic stature. One immense skull was secured which measured 15 inches from the occipital to the frontal bone. The largest mound in the Portage group which was explored was found to be literally filled with bones, and 16 skulls, all in good state of preservation, were removed from the mass. In every one was 8 deep indentation on the left side, little above and behind the orifice of the ear, as though crushed in with blunt instrument Relics were found in the shape of copper bodkins, chisels and wedges, all finely wrought axes- arrows and spear heads, made of species of flint not found in this region; singular and finely finished pear shaped implement of stone, probably used for skinning animals: great numbers of the large teeth of some car- nivorous animal, supposed to be the bear, in some instances with piece of jaw attached and carved; large pearls, some of exquisite lustre. perforated to be strung and a piece of pottery about 12 inches in night, urn shap- ed, round on the bottom and ornamented. On top of one of the most romantic bluffs in the upper Mississippi country, about eight miles from this city, overlooking what is call ed the Sand prairie, are no less than 100 uniform in size, and ranged in rows Of from eight to ten. They are located near the edge of the bluff, and one large mound stands like sentinel on the very point of the eminence. Behind this and about 20 feet away is deep ditch, resembling somewhat the western sinkhole, yet scooped out, undoubt- edly, by the same mysterious hands which reared the mounds adjacent. These mounds nothing but flat stones with bones In West Galena, on the Nikol farm, are to be found lines of Notifications, built evidently for purposes of defense. They extend along the brow of high elevation, skirting the north side of it completely. Be- hind these entertainments or Notifications is a fine level country. short distance to the rear and at the middle of the outer line of works is mound in the shape of 8 house, and at the northwest extremity of the same line, and about an equal distance behind it, is another mound in the shape of a reptile. The Notifications are about two feet in height, about eight feet wide at the base, and fully 30 feet long, One or two of them have been thoroughly explored, but nothing has been found, not even bones.