Professor Putnam's Work in the Ohio Valley.

A Cincinnati dispatch gives the following description of the uncovering of sixteen graves at Fort Ancient, the site of the greatest works of the prehistoric mound builders. The excavations here are under the direction of Professor F. W. Putnam, Curator of Peabody Muscum. Two thousand people were present at the opening of the graves:

"The skeletons disclosed were those of 11 men, one woman and four children. Five were in a good state of preservation, the others in various stages of decay. In one grave the bones were so nearly gone as to preserve only the outline in coarse ashes. In another the skull alone remained, in the jaws of which were the well polished teeth. The skeletons were those of men averaging 5 feet 2 inches in height, the tallest being 6 feet 2 inches. The burials were from three to five feet below the surface. The skeletons rested upon hard clay. Around them had been rudely set up flat river stones, then earth had been filled in, and over all broad, flat stones placed. In this rude incitement their bodies have reposed for centuries. There are evidences that the men had died in conflict. About the neck of one of the child skeletons was found a necklace of bear's teeth, and in two or three of the graves were found tomahawks and stone hatchets, but no relics of any especial value. The graves will be reconstructed exactly as found, for the world's fair exhibit of American antiquities, except that no earth will be over the skeletons.