CHAPTER XIV.PERUVIAN ANTIQUITIES.

Sacred Enclosures—Liberty.

Enclosure at Bourneville.

Works at Hopeton.

The circles often have an interior ditch; in some cases, as at Circleville and Salem, there are two circular embankments one within the other with a ditch between them; but there is only one instance of an exterior ditch, in the work at Bourneville, Ohio, shown in the first cut. The wall is from eight to ten feet high, and the ditch is shallow. The largercircles have generally a single entrance, which is usually, but not always, on the east. There are numerous small circles from thirty to fifty feet in diameter, found in connection with groups of large enclosures, which have very light embankments and no entrances. These may very likely be the remains of lodges or camps. The larger circles are almost invariably connected with squares or rectangles, which have similar embankments but no ditches. These have very commonly an entrance at each angle and one in the middle of each side, but the larger squares have often many more entrances.

View of Earth-works at Hopeton.

The second cut shows a group of sacred enclosures at Hopeton, Ohio, located on the third terrace. The walls of the rectangle are of a clayey loam, fifty feet thick and twelve feet high, without a ditch. The summit is wide enough for a wagon road. The walls of the circle are somewhat lower and composed of clay differing in color from that found in the vicinity. The two smaller circles have interior ditches. The cut gives a view of the same works as they appear from the east. The parallel embankments in thesouth are one hundred and fifty feet apart and extend half a mile to the bank of an old river bed. Two hundred paces north of the large circle, and not shown in the cuts, is another circle two hundred and fifty feet in diameter.

Cedar Bank Enclosures.

The enclosure shown in the next cut is that at Cedar Bank, near Chillicothe, Ohio, and seems to partake somewhat of the nature of a fortification. The west side is naturally protected by the river bank, and the other sides are enclosed by a wall and ditch, each forty feet wide and five to six feet high or deep. The bed of a small stream forms a natural ditch for one half of the eastern side. Within the enclosure in a line with the entrances is a raised platform four feet high, measuring one hundred and fifty by two hundred and fifty feet, with graded ways thirty feet wide, leading to the summit. The parallels outside the enclosure are three or four feet high. The earth-work in Randolph County, Indiana, issufficiently explained by the cut. This work, like the preceding, would seem to have been constructed partially with a view to defence. The work shown in the next cut is part of a group in Pike County, Ohio. The circle is three hundred feet in diameter.

Parallel Embankments—Piketon.

Fortified Square—Indiana.

Earth-work in Pike County, Ohio.

EARTH-WORKS.

The different enclosures of a group are often connected by parallel embankments. Similar embankments protect the roads leading from fortified works to the river bank or other source of water. Many are not connected with any enclosures, though in their vicinity; and in such cases they are very slight, from seven hundred to eight hundred feet long, and sixty to eighty feet apart. Some of these parallels were very likely raised roads instead of enclosed ones, as on the Little Miami River, where the embankments extend about a quarter of a mile from two mounds, forming a semicircle round a third, being a rod wide and only three feet high. At Madison, Louisiana, there is a raised way three feet high, seventy-five feet wide, and two thousand seven hundred feet long, with broad excavations three feet in depth extending on both sides for about two thirds its length. Two parallel banks at Piketon, Ohio, are shown in the cut. They are ten hundred and eighty feet long, two hundred and three feet apart at one end, and two hundred and fifteen at the other; theheight on the outside being from five to eleven feet, but on the inside twenty-two feet at one end. A modern carriage road now runs between the mounds. From the end of one of them a slight embankment extends twenty-five hundred and eighty feet to a group of mounds.

DITCHES AND MOUNDS.

In the north ditches seem never to occur, except with embankments; but in the south, where embankments are rarely if ever found, ditches, or moats, are sometimes employed to enclose other works, especially in Georgia. Such a moat at Carterville communicates with the river, extends to a pond perhaps artificial, and has two reservoirs, each of an acre, connected with it. The mounds and other monuments are located between the river and the moat. I have already spoken of the pits which furnished earth for the various works, sometimes called wells; some wells of another class, found in the bed of streams and supplied with round covers, were found by Mr Squier to be the natural casts of septaria, or imbedded nodules of hard clay.

The mound or heap form is the one most common in American antiquities as in those of nearly the whole world. Mounds are found throughout the Mississippi region as before bounded, and beyond its limits in many directions they merge into the small stone heaps which are known to have been thrown up by the Indians at road-crossings and over graves. They are most numerous in the upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys, in the same region where the embankments also most abound. As I have said, the number in Ohio alone is estimated at more than ten thousand. They are almost always found in connection with embankments and other works of the different classes described, but they are also very numerous in regions where enclosures rarely or never occur, as in Wisconsin and in the gulf states. From the central region about the junction of the Mississippi, Missouri,and Ohio, they gradually diminish in numbers in every direction, and also in size except perhaps towards the south. They are found in valley and plain, on hill-side and hill-top; isolated and in groups; within and without enclosures; and at long distances from other works. By their location alone no satisfactory classification could possibly be made; still, when considered in connection with their contents and other circumstances, their location assumes importance. By their forms the tumuli are classified as temple-mounds, animal-mounds, and conical mounds.

TEMPLE-MOUNDS.

Temple-mounds always have level summit platforms, and are supposed to have once supported wooden structures, although no traces of such temples remain. A graded road straight or winding, of gentler slope than the sides of the mound, often leads to the top; and in many cases the sides have one or more terraces. One in Tennessee, four hundred and fifty feet in diameter and fifty feet high, has ten clearly marked terraces, except on the east. The bases assume a variety of forms, square, rectangular, octagonal, round, oval, etc., but the curves and angles are always extremely regular. In the north they are usually within enclosures, but in the south, where they are most numerous, they have no embankments and are often arranged in groups, the smaller about a larger central mound. In size the temple-mounds vary from a height of five feet and a diameter of forty feet to ninety feet in altitude and a base-area of eight acres. In respect to form, material, structure, contents, and probable use they admit of no subdivision. Like the embankments they are made of earth, or rarely of stones, simply heaped up, with little care in the choice of material and none at all in the order of deposit.

The largest mound of this, or in fact of any, class is that at Cahokia, Illinois. Its base measures seven hundred by five hundred feet. The height is ninety feet. On one end above mid-height is a terrace platformone hundred and sixty by three hundred and fifty feet, and the summit area is two hundred by four hundred and fifty feet, or nearly two acres, the base covering over eight acres. On the top a small conical mound was found, with some human bones, a deposit of doubtful antiquity. A mound is described at Lovedale, Kentucky, as being of octagonal base, five feet high, with sides of a hundred and fifty feet, three graded ascents, and two conical mounds on its summit. Mr Jones states that parapet embankments, round the edge of the summit, sometimes occur on the southern temple-mounds.

Temple-Mound—Marietta, Ohio.

At Marietta, Ohio, are four mounds like that shown in the cut, within a square enclosure. The height of this one is ten feet. The mound at Seltzerton, Mississippi, forty feet in height, covers nearly six acres, and has a summit area of four acres, on which are two conical mounds, also forty feet high and thirty feet in diameter. The base is surrounded with a ditch ten feet deep, an unusual feature. There are said to be large adobe blocks in the northern slope of this pyramid, and the same material is reported in other southern structures. These reports require additional confirmation.

The Messier Mound, in Early County, Georgia,differs in its location from most temple-mounds, standing on the summit of a natural hill which overlooks a broad extent of country. The artificial height is fifty-five feet, and the summit area sixty-six by one hundred and fifty-six feet. There are no traces of any means of ascent, and the slopes are very steep. A ditch extends in a semicircle from corner to corner at the southern end, and thence down the slope of the hill. An excavation of two acres, twenty-five feet deep on an average, seems to have furnished the earth for the mound. A round well, sixty feet in diameter and forty feet deep is found at one end of the excavation. A temple-mound in the Nacooche Valley, Georgia, is elliptical in form, and has a summit area of sixty by ninety feet.

An octagonal mound, forty-five feet high and one hundred and eighty feet in diameter at the top, is located on a hill-top opposite the city of Macon; it was formed of earth carried from the valley below. A temple-mound at Mason's Plantation, on the Savannah River, has been partly washed away by the water, which reveals along the natural surface of the ground a stratum a foot thick of charcoal, baked earth, ashes, broken pottery, shells, and bones of animals and birds, with a few human bones. The mound, which is of the surrounding alluvial soil, would seem to have been erected over a spot long occupied as an encampment. This mound, and another near it, were originally enclosed by a moat which communicated with the river, and widened on one side into a broad lagoon.

On Plunkett Creek, Georgia, is a mound of stones which has the appearance of a temple-mound, having a summit area forty feet in diameter. Stone is rarely used in structures of this class; perhaps this was originally a conical mound. There seem to be few large mounds in the south unaccompanied by ditches, which seem here to have been introduced where embankments would have been preferred in the north.

In a late number of theCincinnati QuarterlyJournal of ScienceI find described, unfortunately only on newspaper authority, a remarkable temple-mound, near Springfield, Missouri, on a hill three hundred feet high. It is of earth and stones, sixty two feet high, five hundred feet in diameter at the base and one hundred and thirty at the summit. A ditch, two hundred feet wide and five feet deep, surrounds the base, and is crossed by a causeway, opposite which a stairway of roughly hewn stones leads up the northern slope. The top is covered by a platform of stone, in the centre of which lies a stone ten by twelve feet, and eleven inches thick, hollowed in the middle. This report without further confirmation must be considered a hoax—at least so far as the stone steps, pavement, and altar are concerned.

Mississippi Temple-Mounds.

The group of temple-mounds shown in the cut isin Washington County, Mississippi. Others similar in many respects to these are found at Madison, Louisiana.

Temple-mounds are homogeneous and never stratified in their construction, and contain no relics; that is, the object in their erection was simply to afford a raised platform, with convenient means of ascent.

Animal-mounds, the second class, are those that assume in their ground plan various irregular forms, sometimes those of living creatures, including quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, and in a few cases men. Mounds of this class are very numerous in the north-west, particularly in Wisconsin, and rarely occur further south, although there are a few excellent specimens in Ohio. They are most abundant in fertile valleys and rarely occur on the lake shore. Nine tenths of them are simple straight, curved, or crooked embankments of irregular form, slightly raised above the surface, bearing no likeness to any natural object. In many, fancied to be like certain animals, the resemblance is imaginary. Those shaped like a tapering club, with two knobs on one side near the larger end—a very common figure—are called 'lizard-mounds;' add two other protuberances on the opposite side and we have the 'turtle-mounds.' Yet a few bear a clear resemblance to quadrupeds, birds, and serpents, and all evidently belong to the same class and were connected with the religious ideas of the builders. They are not burial mounds, contain no relics, are but a few feet at the most above the ground, and are always composed of whitish clay, or the subsoil of the country. Their dimensions on the ground are considerable; rude effigies of human form are in some cases over one hundred feet long; quadrupeds have bodies and tails each from fifty to two hundred feet long; birds have wings of a hundred feet; 'lizard-mounds' are two and even four hundred feet in length; straight and curved lines of embankmentreach over a thousand feet; and serpents are equally extensive. They are grouped without any apparent order together with conical mounds, occasional embankments, and few enclosures. They often form a line extending over a large tract. In some cases the animal form is an excavation instead of a mound, the earth being thrown up on the banks. An embankment in Adams County, Ohio, on the summit of a hill much like those often occupied by fortifications, is thought to resemble a monster serpent with curved body and coiled tail, five feet high, thirty feet wide in the middle, and over one thousand feet long if uncoiled. The jaws are wide open and apparently in the act of swallowing an oval mound measuring one hundred and sixty by eighty feet. On a hill overlooking Granville, Ohio, is a mound six feet high and a hundred and fifty feet long, thought to resemble the form of an alligator. Stones are rarely used with the earth in the construction of animal-mounds, and only in a few cases has the presence of ashes or other traces of fire been reported.

The third class of tumuli includes the conical mounds, mere heaps of earth and stones, so far as outward appearance is concerned, generally round, often oval, sometimes square with rounded corners, or even hexagonal and triangular, in their base-forms, and varying in height from a few inches to seventy feet, in diameter from three or four to three hundred feet. A height of from six to thirty feet and a diameter of forty to one hundred feet would probably include a larger part of them. Of course the height has been reduced and the base increased by the action of rains more or less in different localities according to the material employed. Mounds of this class never have summit platforms or any means of ascent. They are here as elsewhere in America much more numerous than other mounds. Although so like one to another in form, they differ widely in location and contents.They are found on hill-tops and in the level plain. In the former case they are either isolated, grouped round fortifications, or extend in long lines at irregular intervals for many miles, suggesting boundary lines or fire signals. In the valleys they stand alone, in groups, or in connection with sacred enclosures. The groups are sometimes symmetrical, as when a number of mounds are regularly arranged about a larger central one, or are so placed as to form squares, circles, and other regular figures; but often no systematic plan is observable. Also in connection with the enclosures part of them are symmetrically located with respect to entrances, angles, or temple-mounds; while others are scattered apparently without fixed order. There are few enclosures that do not have a mound opposite each entrance on the inside. A complete survey and restoration would probably show many mounds to belong to some regular system, that now appear isolated.

The material of the mounds requires no remark in addition to what has been said of other works. A large majority are simply heaps of the earth nearest at hand. Stone mounds, or those of mixed materials, are rare, and are chiefly confined to the hill-top structures. Most of the earth mounds are homogeneous in structure, but some are regularly and doubtless intentionally stratified. Some of them in the gulf states are composed of shells, in addition to the shell-mounds proper formed by the gradual deposit of refuse shells, the contents of which served as food.

CONTENTS OF THE MOUNDS.

The contents of the mounds should be divided into two great classes; those deposited by the Mound-builders, and those of modern Indian or European origin. The distinction is important, but difficult; and in this difficulty is to be found the origin of many of the extraordinary reports and theories. The Indians have always felt a kind of veneration for the mounds as for something of mysterious origin andpurpose, and have used them as burial places. The Indian habit of burying with their dead such articles as were prized by them when living, is well known; as is also the value attached by them to trinkets obtained by purchase or theft from Europeans. Consequently articles of European manufacture, such as must have been obtained long before the country was to any great extent occupied by the whites, are often dug from the mounds and found elsewhere. The discovery of silver crosses, gun-barrels, and French dials, does not, however, as Mr Squier remarks, justify the conclusion that the Mound-builders "were Catholics, used fire-arms, or spoke French." The mounds are usually opened by injudicious explorers or by treasure-seekers, who have paid little attention to the location of the relics found or the condition of the surrounding soil. Museums and private collections are full of spurious relics thus obtained. It is certain in some cases, and probable in many more, that the mounds have been 'salted' with specimens with a view to their early investigation. Yet many mounds have been opened by scientific men, who have brought to light curious relics, surely the work of the Mound-builders. Such relics are found in the centre of the mounds, on or near the original surface of the ground, with the surrounding material undisturbed. In the stratified mounds any disturbance in the soil is easily detected, but with difficulty in the others. Reports of unusual relics should be regarded as not authentic unless accompanied by most positive proof.

Neither the embankments of sacred enclosures, the temple-mounds, nor the animal-mounds, have been proved to contain any relics that may be attributed to the original builders. Many of the conical mounds do contain such relics, and by their contents or the lack of them, are divided into altar-mounds, burial mounds, and anomalous mounds.

Altar-mounds are always found within or nearenclosures, and each one is found to contain something like an altar, made of burned clay or stone. The altars are generally of fine clay brought from some distance, burned hard sometimes to a depth of twenty inches. They were not burned before being put in place, but by the action of fires built upon or round them. Such as were very slightly burned had no relics. The stone altars are very rare, and are formed of rough slabs, and not hewn from a single block. They are square, rectangular, round, and oval; vary in size from two feet in diameter to fifteen by fifty feet, but are generally from five to eight feet; are rarely over twenty inches high; rest on or near the surface of the ground, in the centre of the mound; and have a basin-shaped concavity on the top. The basin is almost always filled with ashes, in which are the relics deposited by the Mound-builders. Relics are much more numerous in the altar than in the burial mounds, but as they are of the same class, both may best be spoken of together. These altars are probably the structures spoken of by early explorers and writers as hearths; there are reports that some of them were made of burnt bricks.

A peculiarity of the altar-mounds is that they are formed of regular strata of earth, gravel, sand, clay, etc., which are not horizontal, but follow the curve of the surface. The outer layer is commonly of gravel. This stratification renders it easy to detect any modern disturbance of the mounds, and makes the altar relics especially interesting and valuable for scientific purposes. Over the ashes in one altar-mound, were found plates of mica and some human bones. Skeletons are often found near the surface of these mounds, the strata above them being disturbed; in one case the Indians had penetrated to the centre and deposited a body on the altar itself. Sir John Lubbock inclines to the opinion that these were really sepulchral rather than sacrificial mounds, although he had not personally examined them. Whatever their use,they certainly constitute a clearly defined class distinct from all others, and the name altar-mounds is as appropriate as any other.

BURIAL MOUNDS.

Unstratified mounds, never within enclosures and generally at some little distance from them, containing human remains in their centres and undoubtedly erected as places of sepulture, constitute the second class, and are called burial mounds. The custom of heaping up a mound over the dead was probably imitated for a long time by the tribes that followed the Mound-builders, so that the relics from these mounds are less satisfactory than those found on the altars. In the burial mounds that may be most confidently ascribed to the Mound-builders, the human remains are found in a situation corresponding to that of the altars. They are usually enclosed in a frame-work of logs, a covering of bark or coarse matting, or a combination of these, which have left only faint traces. Of the skeleton only small fragments remain, which crumble on exposure to the air. In some cases there are indications that the body was burned before burial. Each mound contains, as a rule, a single skeleton, generally but not always placed east and west. Where several skeletons are found together, they are sometimes placed in a circle with the heads towards the centre. The mounds never contain large numbers of skeletons, and cannot be regarded as cemeteries, but only as monuments reared over the remains of personages high in rank. Very few skulls or bones are recovered sufficiently entire to give any idea of the Mound-builders' physique, and these few show no clearly defined differences from the modern Indian tribes. Four or five burial mounds are often found in a group, the smaller ones in such cases being grouped round a larger central one, generally in contact with its base. Mr Lapham sketched mounds in Wisconsin where the body is deposited in a central basin-shapedexcavation in the ground very much like those in Vancouver Island already described.

Of the eastern burial deposits not connected with the mounds I shall say very little. It has already been stated that the mounds were in no sense cemeteries. Only a favored few of what must have been a dense population were honored by these sepulchral monuments. Obliged to seek elsewhere the general depositories of the dead, we find them of various classes in large numbers; but as yet very little has been done towards identifying any of them as the resting-places of the Mound-builders. There are many bone-pits, or trenches filled with human bones, in the mound region; but some of the modern Indians are well known to have periodically collected and deposited in pits the bones of their dead. Large numbers of bodies have been found in the caves of Kentucky and Tennessee, well preserved by the natural deposits of saltpetre, and wrapped in skins, bark, or feather-cloth; but the fact that such cloths were made and used by the southern tribes, renders the origin of these bodies uncertain. Besides the caves and trenches there are regular cemeteries, some of them very extensive. Seven of these are reported about Nashville, Tennessee, within a radius of ten miles, each being about a mile in extent. The graves are of flat stones, lie in ranges, and contain skeletons much decayed, with some relics. The coffins, or graves, vary from two to six feet in length, and the smallest have sometimes been mentioned as indicating a race of pigmies; it is evident, however, that in such graves bones were not deposited until the flesh had been removed. Sometimes there are traces of wooden coffins, in other cases there are only stones at the head and feet, and often there is no trace of any coffin. A few graves contain relics similar to those in the altar-mounds, and were covered with large forest trees when first seen by Europeans. Yet the comparatively well-preserved skeletons, and the presence in manycases of iron and relics clearly modern, render it well-nigh impossible to decide which, if any, of these cemeteries contain the remains of the Mound-builders.

Mound at Miamisburg.

ANOMALOUS MOUNDS.

Mounds of the third class are called anomalous, and include all that are not evidently either altar or burial mounds, or which have some of the peculiarities of both classes; for instance, in an elliptical mound an altar was found in one centre, and a skeleton in the other. Most prominent among them are the hill-top heaps of earth, or—oftener than in the plains below—of stone. These have as a rule few original burial deposits, and no relics; are often near fortifications; and in many cases bear the marks of fire. Their use cannot be accurately determined, but they are generally regarded as watch-towers and fire signal stations. Of course, comparatively few of the whole number of conical mounds have been explored, but so far as examined they seem to be about equally divided between the three classes. The mound shown in the cut is at Miamisburg, Ohio, and its classis not stated. It is sixty-eight feet high and eight hundred and fifty feet in circumference. Shell-mounds abounding in relics of aboriginal work are very numerous in the gulf states.

I shall pass briefly over the minor relics of aboriginal art since it is impossible in this volume to present illustrative cuts of the thousands of objects that have been found, or even of typical specimens. Such relics as are incontestably the work of the Mound-builders include articles of metal, stone, earthen ware, bone, and shell. They include implements and ornaments, besides which many are of unknown use. Most of the smaller specimens, whose use is unknown, are called by Mr Dickeson and others aboriginal coins; perhaps some of them did serve such a purpose.

The only metals found in the mounds are copper and silver, the latter only in very small quantities. A few gold trinkets have been reported, but the evidence is not conclusive that such were deposited by the Mound-builders. Iron ore and galena occur, but no iron or lead.

Copper is found in native masses, and also hammered into implements and ornaments. There is no evidence that this metal was ever obtained from ore by smelting; it was all doubtless worked cold from native masses by hammering. Concerning the locality where it was procured, there is little or no uncertainty. The abundant deposits of native copper about Lake Superior naturally suggest that region as the source of the copper supply; the discovery of anciently worked mines strengthens the supposition; and the finding among the mounds of copper mixed with silver in a manner only found at Lake Superior, makes the matter a certainty. The modern tribes also obtained some copper from the same localities. The Mound-builders were ignorant of the arts of casting, welding, and alloying. Theyhad no means of hardening their copper tools, being in this respect less advanced than the Nahuas and Mayas. In fact copper implements are much more rare than ornaments of the same metal. The implements include axes, hatchets, adzes, knives, spear-heads, chisels, drills, etc. Ornaments are in the form of rings, gorgets, medals, bracelets, and beads, with a large variety of small articles of unknown use, some of them probably used as money. Very small models of larger implements like axes are often found, and were doubtless worn as ornaments.

Silver is of much rarer occurrence than copper, was obtained probably from the same region, and is almost invariably found in the form of sheets hammered out very thin and closely wrapped about small ornaments of copper or shell. So nicely is the wrapping done that it often resembles plating. The gold whose discovery has been reported has been in the form of beads and so-called coins. Mr Dickeson speaks confidently of gold, silver, copper, and galena money left by the Mound-builders. There is no evidence that the use of iron was known, except the extreme difficulty of clearing forests and carving stone with implements of stone and soft copper.

ABORIGINAL POTTERY.

Earthen Vases from the Mounds.

Specimens of aboriginal pottery are very abundant, although much less so within the mounds than elsewhere near the surface. Mr Squier says, "various though not abundant specimens of their skill have been recorded, which in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fineness of material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in many respects, a close resemblance. They far exceed anything of which the existing tribes of Indians are known to have been capable." The specimens in the mound-deposits are, with very few exceptions, broken. The material is usually a pure clay, sometimes with a slight admixture of pulverized quartz or colored flakes of mica, but such admixturesare much rarer than in modern specimens. Notwithstanding their great regularity of form and beauty of finish, none bear signs that the potter's wheel was used in their construction, and no vessels are glazed by vitrification. They are decorated with various graceful figures, including those of living animals, cut in with sharp instruments. A few crucibles, capable of withstanding intense heat, have been found, also terra-cotta images of animals and men, and ornaments or coins in small quantities. Pottery-kilns are found in the south, but that they were the work of the Mound-builders has not been satisfactorily proven. Specimens of the finer class of vases are shown in the cut. The first is of pure clay with a slight silicious mixture. It is five and a half inches high and six and a half in diameter, not over one sixth of an inch in uniform thickness, pierced with four holes in the line round the rim, dark brown or umber in color, and highly polished. The decorative lines are cut in with a sharp instrument which left no ragged edges. The second vase is of somewhat smaller size and coarser material; but more elaborately ornamented and only one eighth of an inch in thickness.

STONE IMPLEMENTS.

Stone implements are more abundant than those of any other material in the altar-mounds and elsewhere. They include arrow and spear heads, knives, axes, hatchets, chisels, and other variously formed cutting instruments, with hammers and pestles. These are made of quartz and other hard varieties of stone, all belonging to the mound region except the obsidian. There is no doubt that obsidian implements were used by the Mound-builders, and as this material is said not to be found nearer than Mexico and California, it is perhaps as likely that the implements were obtained by trade as that they were manufactured in the country. Neither the obsidian knives, nor other stone weapons, show any marked differences from those found in Mexico, Central America, and most other parts of the world. Lance and arrow heads, finished and in the rough, entire or more frequently broken by the action of fire, are taken by hundreds and thousands from the altar-mounds; several bushels of lance-heads of milky quartz were found in one mound. It is a remarkable fact, however, that no weapons whatever are found in burial mounds. Beads, rings, and other ornaments of stone are often found, with a variety of anomalous articles whose use is more or less imperfectly understood. Besides weapons and knives, pipes are the articles most abundant, and on which the Mound-builders expended most lavishly their skill, carving the bowls into a great variety of beautiful forms, at what must have been an immense outlay of labor. A remarkable peculiarity of their pipe-carvings is that accurate representations are given of different natural objects instead of the rude caricatures and monstrosities in which savage art usually delights. Nearly every beast, bird, and reptile indigenous to the country is truthfully represented, together with some creatures now only found in tropical climates, such as the lamantin and toucan. The pipes generally consist of a bowl rising from thecentre of the convex side of a curved base, one end of which serves as a handle and the other is pierced for a stem. They are always cut from a single piece, the material being generally a hard porphyry, oftenest red, and strongly resembling in some cases the red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Prairies. The locality where this pipe material was obtained is unknown. Many of the sculptured figures show skillful workmanship and a high polish; I think that many of them are not inferior to the products of Nahua and Maya skill. Some rude stone images of unknown use have been found at various points, but I am not aware that any relics have been authentically reported from the altar-mounds which indicate that the ancient people were worshipers of idols. Mica is the mineral most common in both altar and burial mounds, where it occurs in plates cut into a great variety of forms. Some of them have been conjectured to have served as mirrors. Bushels are sometimes deposited in a single mound. Pieces of coal artificially formed are included by Dickeson among his aboriginal coins.

Bones of indigenous animals are found worked into daggers, awls, and similar implements; or as ornaments in the form of beads. Similar use was made of the teeth and talons of beasts and birds. Teeth of the bear, wolf, panther, alligator, and shark, have been found, some of the latter being fossils, together with large quantities of teeth resembling those of the whale, but not fully identified.

Five varieties of marine shells, all from the gulf shores, have been examined, with pearls whose size and numbers prove that they are not of fresh-water origin. Both are used for ornaments, chiefly in the form of beads. Pearls are also found in a few instances serving as eyes for animal and bird sculptures. Some articles of bone and shell have been mistaken for ivory and accredited with an Asiatic origin,through ignorance that their material is found on the shores of the gulf. Many articles found in the mounds, and not perhaps included in the preceding general description, are interesting, but could only be described in a detailed account, for which I have no space; but most relics not thus included are of doubtful authenticity, and a doubtful monument of antiquity should always be attributed to modern times.

ANCIENT MINES.

The ancient miners have left numerous traces of their work in the region of Lake Superior. At one place a piece of pure copper weighing over five tons was found fifteen feet below the surface, under trees at least four hundred years old. It had been raised on skids, bore marks of fire, and some stone implements were scattered about. There is no evidence that the tribes found in possession of the country by the first French missionaries ever worked these mines, or had any tradition of a people that had worked them, although both they and their ancestors had copper knives hammered from lumps of the metal, which are very commonly found on the surface. All the traditions and Indian stories of 'mines' may most consistently be referred to these natural superficial deposits. The ancient mines were for the most part in the same localities where the best modern mines are worked. Most of them have left as traces only slight depressions in the surface, the finding of which is regarded by prospectors as a tolerably sure indication of a rich vein of copper. The cut represents a section of one of the veins of copper-bearing rock worked by the ancient miners. The mass of copper ataweighed about six tons. At the top a portion of the stone had been left across the vein as a support. Copper implements, including wedges used in mining as 'gads,' are found in and about the old mines; with hammers of stone, mostly grooved for withe handles. Some weigh from thirty to forty pounds and have twogrooves; others again are not grooved at all. In one case remains of a handle of twisted cedar-roots were found, and much-worn wooden shovels often occur. There are no enclosures, mounds, or other traces of a permanent settlement of the Mound-builders in the mining region. It is probable that the miners came each summer from the south; in fact, it would have been impossible to work the mines in winter by their methods.

Section of an old Copper Mine.

ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS.

Nearly all the coins, medals, stone tablets, etc., that have been discovered within the region occupied by the Mound-builders, bearing inscriptions in regular apparently alphabetic characters, may be proved to be of European origin; and the few specimens that do not admit of such proof should of course be attributed to such an origin in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary. Rude delineations of men, animals, and other recognizable objects, together with many arbitrary, perhaps conventional, characters, are of frequentoccurrence on the walls of caves, on perpendicular river-cliffs, and on detached stones. They are sometimes incised, but usually painted. Most bear a strong resemblance to the artistic efforts of modern tribes; and those which seem to bear marks of a greater antiquity, have by no means been identified as the work of the Mound-builders. These eastern rock-inscriptions do not call for additional remarks, after what has been said of similar carvings in other regions. Many of the figures have a meaning to those who make them, but that meaning, as in all writings of this class, perishes with the artist and his immediate times. Attempts by zealous antiquaries to penetrate the signification of particular inscriptions—as that on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, and other well-known examples—have failed to convince any but the determined advocate of such theories as seem to derive support from the so-called translation. My father saw a stone tablet taken from a stone mound near Newark, covered with carved characters, which the clergyman of the town pronounced to be the ten commandments in ancient Hebrew. I have no doubt that the figures did closely resemble the ancient Hebrew in one respect at least—that is, in being equally unfamiliar to the clergyman.

CONCLUSIONS.

Without taking up here the various theories respecting the origin, history, and disappearance of the Mound-builders, it may be well to express in a few brief conclusions what may be learned of this people by an examination of the monuments which they have left.

They were a numerous people, as is sufficiently proved by the magnitude and geographical extent of their works. They were probablyonepeople, that is, composed of tribes living under similar laws, religion, and other institutions. Such variations as are observed in the monuments are only those that would naturally occur between central and frontier regions,although the animals-mounds of the north-west present some difficulties. The Mound-builders were an agricultural people. Tribes that live by hunting never build extensive public works, neither would the chase support a sufficiently large population for the erection of such works. Moreover, the location of the monuments in the most fertile sections goes far to confirm this conclusion. Some of the larger enclosures have been supposed,—only by reason of their size, however,—to have been cultivated fields; and evident traces of an ancient cultivation are found, although not clearly referable to the Mound-builders.

There is nothing to show an advanced civilization in the modern sense of the word, but they were civilized in comparison with the roving hunter-tribes of later times. They knew nothing of the use of metals beyond the mere hammering of native masses of copper and silver; they built no stone structures; they had seemingly made no approach to the higher grades of hieroglyphic writing. Their civilization as recorded by its material relics consisted of a knowledge of agriculture; considerable skill in the art of fortification; much greater skill than that of the Indians in the manufacture of pottery and the carving of stone pipes; the mathematical knowledge displayed in the laying-out of perfect circles and accurate angles, and in the correspondence in size between different works. Their earth-works show more perseverance than skill; no one of them necessarily implies the use of mechanical aids to labor; there is none that a large number of men might not construct by carrying earth in simple baskets.

All traces of their architecture have disappeared. It has been suggested that were the temples yet standing on their pyramidal foundations, they might compare favorably with those of Central America and Mexico. But the construction of wooden edifices with any pretensions to grandeur and symmetry, by means of stone and soft copper tools, seems absolutelyimpossible; at least such structures would require infinitely greater skill than that displayed by the Nahuas and Mayas, and it is more reasonable to suppose that the temples of the Mound-builders were rude wooden buildings.

The monuments imply a wide-spread religious system under a powerful priesthood; private devotion manifests itself on a scale less magnificent, and one involving less hard work. Of their rites we know nothing. The altar-mounds suggest sacrifice; burned human bones, human sacrifice. Gateways on the east, and the east and west direction of embankments and skeletons may connect worship with the sun; but all is conjecture. No idols, known to be such, have been found; the cemeteries, if any of them belong to the Mound-builders, show no uniform usage in burial. The ancient people lived under a system of government considerably advanced, more than likely in the hands of the priesthood, but of its details we know nothing. A social condition involving some form of slavery would be most favorable for the construction of such works.

The monuments described are not the work of the Indian tribes found in the country, nor of any tribes resembling them in institutions. Those tribes had no definite tradition even of past contact with a superior people, and it is only in the south among the little-known Natchez, that slight traces of a descent from, or imitation of, the Mound-builders appear. Most and the best authorities deem it impossible that the Mound-builders were even the remote ancestors of the Indian tribes; and while inclined to be less positive than most who have written on the subject respecting the possible changes that may have been effected by a long course of centuries, I think that the evidence of a race locally extinct is much stronger here than in any other part of the continent.

The monuments are not sufficient in themselves to absolutely prove or disprove the truth of any one ofthe following theories: 1st. An indigenous culture springing up among the Mississippi tribes, founded on agriculture, fostered by climate and other unknown circumstances, constantly growing through long ages, driving back the surrounding walls of savagism, but afterwards weakened by unknown causes, yielding gradually to savage hordes, and finally annihilated or driven in remnants from their homes southward. 2d. A colony from the southern peoples already started in the path of civilization, growing as before in power, but at last forced to yield their homes into the possession of savages. 3d. A migrating colony from the north, dwelling long in the land, gradually increasing in power and culture, constantly extending their dominion southward, and finally abandoning voluntarily or against their will, the north for the more favored south, where they modified or originated the southern civilization.

The last theory, long a very popular one, is in itself less consistent and receives less support from the relics than the others. The second, which has some points in common with the first, is most reasonable and best supported by monumental and traditional evidence. The temple-mounds strongly resemble in their principal features the southern pyramids; at least they imply a likeness of religious ideas in the builders. The use of obsidian implements shows a connection, either through origin, war, or commerce, with the Mexican nations, or at least with nations who came in contact with the Nahuas. There are, moreover, several Nahua traditions respecting the arrival on their coasts from the north-east, of civilized strangers. There is very little evidence that the Mound-builders introduced in the south the Nahua civilization, and none whatever that the Aztec migration started from the Mississippi Valley, but I am inclined to believe that there was actually a connection between the two peoples; that the Mound-builders, or those that introduced their culture, wereoriginally a Nahua colony, and that these people may be referred to in some of the traditions mentioned. Without claiming to be able to determine exactly the relation between the Mound-builders and Nahuas, I shall have something further to say on this subject in another volume.

ANTIQUITY OF THE MONUMENTS.

The works were not built by a migrating people, but by a race that lived long in the land. It seems unlikely that the results attained could have been accomplished in less than four or five centuries. Nothing indicates that the time did not extend to thousands of years, but it is only respecting the minimum time that there can be any grounds for reasonable conjecture. If we suppose the civilization indigenous, of course a much longer period must be assigned to its development than if it was introduced by a migration—or rather a colonization, for civilized and semi-civilized peoples do not migrate en masse. Moreover a northern origin would imply a longer duration of time than one from the south, where a degree of civilization is known to have existed.

How long a time has elapsed since the Mound-builders abandoned their works? Here again a minimum estimate only can be sought. No work is more enduring than an embankment of earth. There is no positive internal proof that they were not standing one, five, or ten thousand years ago. The evidences of an ancient abandonment of the works, or serious decline of the builders' power, are as follows:—1st, the fact that none of them stand on the last-formed terrace of the rivers, most on the oldest terrace, and that those on the second bear in some cases marks of having been invaded by water. The rate of terrace-forming varies on different streams, and there are no sufficient data for estimating in years the time required for the formation of any one of the terraces, at least scientific men are careful not to give a definite opinion in the matter; but it is evident that each required a very long period, and the last one a muchlonger time than any of the others, on account of the gradual longitudinal leveling of the river-beds. 2d. The complete disappearance of all wooden structures, which must have been of great solidity. 3d. The advanced state of decomposition of human bones in a soil well calculated for their preservation. Skeletons are found in Europe well preserved at a known age of eighteen hundred years. 4th. The absence of the Mound-builders from the traditions of modern tribes. Nothing would seem more likely to be preserved in mythic or historic traditions than contact with a superior people, and the mounds would serve to keep the traditions alive. 5th. The fact that the monuments were covered in the seventeenth century with primitive forests, uniform with those which covered the other parts of the country. In this latitude the age of a forest tree may be much more accurately determined than in tropical climates; and trees from four to five hundred years old have been examined in many well-authenticated cases over mounds and embankments. Equally large trees in all stages of decomposition were found at their feet on and under the ground, so that the abandonment of the works must be dated back at least twice the actual age of the standing trees. It is a fact well known to woodsmen that when cultivated land is abandoned the first growth is very unlike the original forest, both in the species and size of the trees, and that several generations would be required to restore the primitive timber. Consequently a thousand years must have passed since some of the works were abandoned. The monuments of the Mississippi present stronger internal evidence of great antiquity than any others in America, although it by no means follows that they are older than Palenque and Copan. The height of the Mound-builders' power should not, without very positive external evidence, be placed at a later date than the fifth or sixth century of our era.

Two Epochs of Peruvian Civilization—Aboriginal Government, Religion, and Arts—Contrasts—The Huacas—Human Remains—Articles of Metal—Copper Implements—Gold and Silver Vases and Ornaments—Use of Iron unknown—Aboriginal Engineering—Paved Roads—Peruvian Pottery—Ruins of Pachacamac—Mausoleum of Cuelap—Gran-Chimú—Huaca of Misa—Temple of the Sun—Remains on the Island of Titicaca—Chavin de Huanta—Huanuco el Viejo—Cuzco—Monuments of Tiahuanaco—Island of Coati.

I conclude with a short chapter on Peruvian antiquities, made up for the most part from the work of Rivero and Tschudi, and illustrated with the cuts copied from that work for Mr Baldwin's account.[XIV-1]Ancient Peru included also modern Ecuador, Bolivia, and a large part of Chili; and the most remarkable monuments of antiquity are considered the works of a people preceding that found by Pizarro in possession of the country, and bearing very much the same relation to the subjects of the Incas as the ancient Mayas bore to the Quichés of Guatemala, or perhaps the Toltecs to the Aztecs. The Peruvians that came into contact with the Spaniards were superior in some respectsto the Aztecs. At least equally advanced in the various mechanical and fine arts, except sculpture and architectural decoration, they lived under as perfect a system of government, and rendered homage to less bloodthirsty gods. They kept their records by means ofquipus, or knotted strings, a method probably as useful practically as the Aztec picture-writing, but not so near an approach to an alphabet; while the more ancient nations have left nothing to compare with the hieroglyphic tablets of Central America, and the evidence is far from satisfactory that they possessed any advanced art in writing. It will be seen from the specimens to be presented that their architecture, though perhaps more massive than that of Mayas or Nahuas, is not on the whole of a superior character. The most marked contrasts are found in the occurrence in Peru of cyclopean structures, the use of larger blocks of stone, the comparative absence of the pyramidal foundations, of architectural and hieroglyphic sculpture, and the more extensive use of adobes as a building-material.

METALLIC RELICS.

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