The most recent and satisfactory exploration of mounds in Ohio, was that conducted by Prof. E. B. Andrews for the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, and published in the Tenth Annual Report of the Trustees (Cambridge, 1877). The mounds examined are in Fairfield, Perry, Athens, and Hocking Counties. In Fairfield County they were all located upon hills and commanded extensive views. Their contents indicated great age, being much decayed. At New Lexington in Perry County, ancient flint diggings, unquestionably worked by the Mound-builders, were examined, many of the pits being six to eight feet deep. In Athens County, on Wolf Plain, situated in Athens and Dover Townships, several circles and nineteen conical mounds are found. One of the latter measures forty feet high, with a diameter of 170 feet, and contains 437.742 cubic feet. Another, known as the Beard Mound, was excavated, and the interesting fact discovered that in its construction the dirt had been “thrown down in small quantities—averaging about a peck—as if from a basket.” Prof. Andrews is of the opinion that the mound was a long time in building, “for we find,” he remarks, “at many different levels, the proof that grasses and other vegetation grew rankly upon the earth heap and were buried by the dirt.” In a neighboring mound known as the George Connett Mound, under a bed of charcoal five feet below the summit, a skeleton was found in a box or coffin, enclosed by timbers. The upper part of the coffin and middle of the body had been destroyed by fire. A circle of five hundred copper beads was found around the body. A copper instrument resembling a calker’s chisel, measuring 141 mm. in length, width at flattened end, 52 mm., diameter of cylindrical part, 20 mm. The instrument was formed from sheet copper, beaten with such care that no traces of the hammer are visible. “The edges are brought together and united very closely by a slight overlap.” Professor Andrews describes and figures a piece of leather ornamented with oval copper beads taken from a point eight feet below the surface of a mound designated as the “school-house mound.” The original piece measured eight or ten inches square, but unfortunately fell into the hands of bystanders, who tore it in pieces for relics. The Professor regards the curiosity as of Mound-builder origin, and thinks it belonged to an ornamented dress. We cannot detail these interesting explorations here, and must dismiss them with the deduction that in certain cases the cremation of the bodies found in mounds was accidental, caused by the heat penetrating through a layer of earth on which a fire had been kindled. In other instances, the body seems to have been burned intentionally, and the ashes and charred bones heaped together in the centre of the mound. Some clay and stone tubes of fine workmanship were obtained. The same document above cited contains a valuable paper by Mr. Lucian Carr on his interesting exploration of a mound in Lee County, Virginia.

Grave Creek Mound, situated twelve miles below Wheeling in West Virginia, is the Monster work of the Ohio Valley. It measures seventy feet in height and nine hundred feet in circumference. Its form is that of a truncated cone, the flattened area on the top being fifty feet in diameter.[39] The States of Indiana[40] and Illinois formed with Ohio a portion of the great centre of the Mound-builder country, as the remains found on the watercourses of both States testify. The valleys of the Wabash, Kankakee, Illinois and Saline Rivers were the once populous dwelling-places of a thrifty and industrious people who have left thousands of structures behind them.[41] The Alleghany Mountains, the natural limit of the great Mississippi basin, appears to have served as the eastern and south-eastern boundary of the Mound-builder country. In Western New York, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and in all of Kentucky and Tennessee, their remains are numerous and in some instances imposing. In Tennessee especially, the works of the Mound-builders are of the most interesting character. Prof. Joseph Jones, of the University of New Orleans, has by his thorough and recent explorations under the patronage of the Smithsonian Institution, brought to light very interesting materials for the study of the history of this people. The works of defence in the shape of stone forts, by some thought to be peculiar to New York and the lake boundaries, with occasional exceptions in the Ohio Valley, have been found to abound in Coffee and other counties. One very perfect example of this kind of fortification, but very imperfectly described and figured by Haywood,[42] is that known as the stone fort near Manchester, Tenn. This enclosure, containing over fifty-four acres, has been minutely described by Prof. Jones.[43] In the accompanying cut the reader will obtain a pretty clear idea of the form of this fort. The wall, which varies from four to ten feet in height, is composed of loose rocks gathered apparently from the bed of the streams below, and the vicinity. The ditch shown in the cut at the rear of the works was probably designed to convey water from one creek to the other. The entrance is quite complicated and constitutes the most remarkable feature of the fortification.

One peculiarity of burial noticeable in this locality, and one which evidently indicates progression when we come to compare these people with those farther north, is the fact that the ancient race of Tennessee buried their dead in rude stone coffins or cists, constructed of flat pieces of limestone or slaty sandstone which abound in the central portions of the State. In most of the mounds this mode of burial prevailed, but was not confined to them, for outside of the mounds in many enclosures a large number of stone graves occur. Of the class of “Stone-grave Burial Mounds”, one situated twelve miles from Nashville, near Brentwood, is worthy of mention. This mound was about forty-five feet in diameter by twelve feet high, and contained one hundred skeletons. These were mostly in stone graves, which were constructed in ranges one above another, three or four deep. The lower graves were short and square, containing bones that had apparently been deposited after the flesh had been removed. The upper graves were full length and contained remains in which the bones occupied their natural relation to each other. The workmanship both of the mound and stone cists was of the most perfect character. The lids of the upper stone cists were so arranged as to present a perfectly rounded, sloping rock surface. The mound was situated on the eastern slope of a beautiful hill, covered with a heavy growth of the native forest. In a large and carefully constructed stone tomb, Prof. Jones discovered the skeleton of an aged individual of immense length, having toothless jaw bones. In a grave occupied by a skeleton of a female, a small compartment or stone box was found near the head, separated from the main coffin by stone slabs, in which was the skeleton of an infant. It should be added that in the square or short graves so often met with, the skull was placed in the centre and the other bones arranged around it.[44] Numerous stone graves not covered by mounds were found on the Cumberland River opposite the mouth of Lick Branch, surrounding a chain of four mounds. A similar graveyard was found on the same bank of the Cumberland, a mile and a half farther down. Others were met with on White Creek, nine miles from Nashville, at Sycamore in Cheatham County; at Brentwood, in White County near Sparta, and along the tributaries of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers at short intervals. At Oldtown on the Big Harpeth, is an extensive and remarkable collection of stone graves. All these burial grounds seem to be those of the people who constructed the mounds, for most of the mounds examined contained stone graves, not in their upper strata, but on the level of the surrounding land. A mound opposite Nashville, on the east bank of the Cumberland River, of great interest, was examined. Prof. Jones is convinced that it formerly served as the site or base of a temple. Its dimensions were one hundred feet in diameter by only ten feet high. In the centre of the mound and only three feet from its surface the Professor uncovered a large sacrificial vase or altar, forty-three inches in diameter, composed of a mixture of clay and river-shells. The rim of this flat earthen vessel or sacrificial altar was three inches in height and appeared mathematically circular. The surface of the “altar” was covered by a layer of ashes about one inch in thickness. The antlers and jaw-bone of a deer were found resting on the surface of the altar, and it is probable that part of the animal had been consumed as a sacrifice. The whole had been carefully covered with three feet of earth and the ashes preserved. In this mound rude sarcophagi were ranged around this sacred centre with the heads toward the altar and the feet toward the circumference of the circle, while the directions of the bodies were those of radii. Those bodies near the altar were ornamented with numerous beads of sea-shell and bone. In a carefully constructed stone sarcophagus, in which the face of the skeleton was turned toward the setting sun, the beautiful shell ornament shown in the cut, measuring 4.4 inches in diameter, was found lying on the breast-bone of the skeleton. It was made from some large shell derived from the sea-coast. Of the numerous interesting places examined by Prof. Jones, the site of Oldtown, on the Big Harpeth River, about six miles south-west of Franklyn, Tennessee, is worthy of special attention. The plan of the works and their general dimensions will be seen in the cut. At present, the crescent-shaped wall of 2470 feet in extent is but from two to six feet in height, having been reduced to its present condition by the plowshare. Thirty years ago it is said to have been so steep that it was impossible to ride a horse over it. Within the enclosure are two pyramidal mounds; the larger is one hundred and twelve by sixty-five feet and eleven feet high, and the smaller, seventy by sixty feet by nine feet high; also a small burial mound measuring thirty by twenty feet and 2.5 feet high. Another burial mound is covered by the residence of the owner, Mr. Thomas Brown. Many curiously-shaped clay vessels were obtained at these works by the explorers. Some of the vases were fashioned into effigies of frogs and various animals, and one vase obtained by Mr. Brown in excavating for the foundation for his residence, had a neck terminating in two human heads. Some of the vessels from Oldtown are figured in the cut.

The art of painting seems to have been extensively practised by the mound people of Tennessee, not only in the decoration of pottery, but in representing ideal conceptions, which they spread out in extensive pictures upon the smooth faces of rocky walls overhanging the rivers. The material generally used was red ochre. Prof. Jones says: “The painting representing the sun on the rocks overhanging the Big Harpeth River, about three miles below the road which crosses this stream and connects Nashville and Charlotte, can be seen for a distance of four miles, and it is probable that the worshippers of the sun assembled before this high place for the performance of their sacred rites.”[45] The Professor’s vast collection of relics in stone and clay, including several images, we cannot here describe. We refer the reader to the Memoir itself. The Professor has clearly shown that the Mound-builder people and the Indians were distinct, and has set at rest a question upon which some few doubts were still entertained by a certain school of Archæologists, which has really never been very strong. The connection with or identity of the Mound-builders and the Toltics or the same family of people is also shown satisfactorily. We will add that the Professor is disposed to consider the Natchez as the connecting link between the Mound-builders and the Nahuas. We regard the Memoir one of the most important which has ever appeared on the subject of mound exploration. The rich collection of crania will be referred to in a future chapter.

In September, 1877, Prof. F. W. Putnam and Mr. Edwin Curtiss, also a party under Major Powell excavated a large number of mounds and stone graves, mostly in the neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. The results were substantially the same as those obtained by Prof. Jones. Prof. Putnam found within an earthwork near Lebanon, in Wilson County, sixty miles east of Nashville, what he considers to be the remains of dwellings of the Mound-builders. There were circular ridges of earth varying from a few inches to a little over three feet in height, with diameters ranging from ten to fifty feet. Within these enclosures, a few inches below the surface, hard floors, upon which fires had been made, were discovered. Under these floors, in many instances, infants and children had been buried, while the adults had been interred in a neighboring mound. Accompanying the skeletons of the children, many beautiful vessels of strange and artistic forms were found (cuts of three of these were kindly furnished by Prof. Putnam for this work), all evincing the tenderness with which the offspring of this people were regarded. Prof. Putnam examined nineteen of the earth-circles, which he adds, “proved to my satisfaction that the ridges were formed by the decay of the walls of a circular dwelling. * * * These houses had probably consisted of a frail circular structure, the decay of which would only leave a slight elevation, the formation of the ridge being assisted by the refuse from the house.”[46]

Colonies of Mound-builders seem to have passed the great natural barrier into North Carolina and left remains in Marion County, while still others penetrated into South Carolina and built on the Wateree River. In March, 1873, Mr. Jas. R. Page examined several mounds in Washington and Issaquena Counties in the State of Mississippi. One mound explored in Washington County on the old bank of the Mississippi River, was a truncated cone eighty feet in diameter by forty feet high. A mound in the neighborhood, only eleven feet high, yielded rich returns for the labors of excavation. A white oak on its summit measured thirty-six inches in diameter. This mound yielded twelve skeletons with their crania. The group was in a sitting posture around a circle, with their faces looking toward its centre. Directly in front of the mouth of each skeleton were placed two or three vessels of pottery, beautifully ornamented with etchings and graceful lines. The object of the vessels, placed in such near proximity to the mouths of the buried remains, can only be conjectured. We regret that no measurements of the crania are given, and what is more, we deplore the loss of most of the crania in the course of their transportation.[47] Mr. W. Marshall Anderson, of Circleville, Ohio, examined Mounds in Issaquena County, Miss., with interesting results; in one mound opened, not far from its outer edge, three skeletons were found buried in a standing position, as though they had acted as the guards of a more distinguished person deposited in the centre. Penetrating the mound still farther by means of a trench, Mr. Anderson reached a large deposit of ashes and burnt earth. Near the centre of the mound and five feet above the level of the earth, upwards of twenty-five unbroken specimens of fine pottery were discovered. At the very centre three individuals had been buried apparently in great state, with all the insignia of their important positions in life. These were ornaments, urns, vases, beads, and arrow-points; while adjoining the heads of each were food and drinking vessels. Not far removed from these, two skeletons were found with bowls placed upon their heads like helmets. Mr. Anderson is the possessor of a very remarkable stone disk obtained for him by Dr. Robinson from a Issaquena mound near Lake Washington, Miss. The disk is nearly eight and a half inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick, of fine-grained sandstone. The device which it bears upon its face is composed of two entwined rattlesnakes. A trifling ornamental border is graven on the reverse side of the disk. When found it was broken in two pieces. Mr. Anderson, in comparing its strange device to the Aztec Calendar Stone, remarks: “Here are the eighteen pipes of the border corresponding to the eighteen months of the year, but the twenty days of the month and the five intercalaries are not to be found. The thirteen hieroglyphical figures, and the four zodiacal signs, which as multiples give the fifty-two years of the Aztec cycle, are also absent on the Mississippi stone.”[48] The serpent-symbol appears to have played its part among the Mound-builders, as well as in Mexico and Central America. The great serpent of Adams County, Ohio, is the most extensive delineation of the all-important symbol on the continent. Out of eighteen engraved circular plates made of the shell of the Pyrula and taken from Brakebill and Lick Creek Mounds in East Tennessee (and now deposited in the Peabody Museum of Archæology) thirteen bear the device of a rattlesnake. In one of the mounds of “Mound City,” Ross County, Ohio, several small tablets representing the rattlesnake were unearthed, while other mounds in the same locality yielded pipes bearing the same representation.[49]

On the Southern Mississippi, in the area embraced between the termination of the Cumberland Mountains near Florence and Tuscumbia in Alabama and the mouth of Big Black River, this people left numerous works, many of which were of a remarkable character.[50] The whole region bordering on the tributaries of the Tombigbee, the country through which the Wolf River flows and that watered by the Yazoo River and its affluents, was densely populated by the same people who built mounds in the Ohio Valley. Mr. Fontaine describes the mounds of this region and of the Tennessee River Valley as being most frequently of the truncated pyramidal type, and refers to one (seen by him in 1847) seventy feet high, covering an acre of ground. It is remarkable that the entire valley of the great river from Cairo to the mouth of Pointe à la Hache, fifty miles below New Orleans, is thickly studded with mounds.[51] As at Cahokia the Monarch Mound occupied a space equal to six acres, so at Seltzertown, Mississippi, we have another immense mound covering nearly the same area. Its dimensions are: length, about six hundred feet; breadth, four hundred feet at the base; height, forty feet, with a summit nearly four acres in area, reached by means of a graded way. The structure lies with its greatest length nearly due east and west. Upon the platform summit are three conical mounds, one at each end and the third in the centre. The mound at the western extremity of the summit rises to a height of nearly forty feet, while the one at the opposite extreme does not fall far short of the same altitude. This would give a total height of eighty feet above the level of the base. Both of these mounds are truncated. Eight other mounds of minor proportions are observable. The most remarkable feature connected with this mound is a wall of sun-dried bricks, built two feet thick, as its support on the northern side. These were filled with grass rushes and leaves, while some of the bricks of great size used in angular tumuli which mark the corners of the mound, retain the impressions of human hands.[52] The Mound-builders were certainly numerous in the Gulf States east of the Mississippi. On the Etowah River in Alabama a mound seventy-five feet high and twelve hundred feet in diameter at the base, has a graded avenue leading to its flattened summit. It has close affinities to the Mexican and Yucatan mounds.[53] M. F. Stephenson describes a group of ten mounds near Cartersville, Georgia, on the Etowah River, the principal one of which is eighty feet high and one hundred and fifty feet square on the top. A stone idol, gold beads, mica mirrors, translucent quartz beautifully wrought, and many relics of interest were here discovered. He also describes three chambers hewn out of the solid rock at the falls of Little River, near the Alabama line; while at Nacooche the crest of a conical hill was cut off at fifty feet from its base, leaving a platform top with an area of an acre and a half. Two sides are quite precipitous, but the others are protected by a ditch and wall. Two other instances of the stone wall are mentioned. First at Yond Mountain, four thousand feet high of solid granite, and perpendicular on all sides except a small space which is protected by a stone wall of artificial construction. The second instance is quite similar, occurring at Stone Mountain, which reaches a height of 2360 feet.[54] These natural eminences no doubt were utilized for the purposes of worship or observation, just as many natural hills in Mexico were graded and shaped symmetrically to serve similar uses.

Wm. McKinley, Esq., has described and surveyed additional works in Georgia of quite a remarkable character, on Sapelio Island in McIntosh County and on Dry Creek in Sacred Grove, Early County. But the most lofty work of all, the giant of the mounds, is the pyramid of Kolee Mokee in the same county, reaching a height of ninety-five feet and having a circumference at its base of 1128 feet. Its form is that of a parallelogram, 350 feet long and 214 wide. The plane on the summit measures 181 feet in length by 82½ feet in width.[55] In Florida the works of the Mound-builders have been extensively examined by Prof. Jeffries Wyman, to whose labors we shall refer in the next chapter. Dr. A. Mitchell made some interesting explorations in 1848 on Amelia Island, and was rewarded by the recovery of some well-marked mound crania.[56]

Returning to the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi, the point at which we left the western boundary of the Mound-builder country in order to treat the characteristics of its central region, we find mounds, as we previously stated, in great numbers in the neighborhood of St. Louis. In the valley of the St. Francis River, mounds that have been explored have yielded many rich relics, artistic water vessels, vases and statuettes. In Green County, Missouri, N. Lat. 37° 20´ and 16° Long, west of Washington City, is a very remarkable truncated conical mound which has only been externally surveyed. This mound is 60 feet high, 350 feet in diameter at the base, and 130 feet in diameter on the top. It is surrounded by a trench (except about twenty feet at the north) about two hundred feet wide and four feet deep. On the north the excavation is seven or eight feet deep.[57] These trenches served a double purpose—that of furnishing material for the construction of the mound, and when completed, of providing an impassable moat filled with water, that neither enemies nor the rabble might approach the sacred mount.[58] In Phillips County, Prof. Cox discovered an ancient fortification near Helena, built like a part of the Seltzertown mound, of sun-dried bricks; stems and leaves of the cane were used instead of straw in making the bricks.[59]

Professor Swallow, in company with a number of scientific gentlemen, opened a large mound in Lewis’ Prairie, west of New Madrid, Missouri (in December, 1856), in which he found a great collection of earthen dishes and vases. The mound was elliptical in form, measuring 900 feet in periphery at the base, 570 feet at the top and twenty feet in height. The remarkable feature of the mound was that it contained a room formed of poles, lathed with split cane and plastered with clay both inside and out, forming a solid mass. “Over this room was built the earthwork of the mound, so that when it was completed the room was in its centre. The earthwork was then coated with the plaster, and over all nature formed a soil. This mud plastering was left rough on the outside of the room, but smooth on the inside, which was painted with red ochre.”[60] Some of the plastering was burned as red and hard as brick, while other parts were only sun-dried. Professor Swallow believes the mounds of the region to be very ancient. On mounds and neighboring embankments a sycamore tree twenty-eight feet in circumference, three feet above the ground, a black-walnut twenty-six feet in circumference, a white ash twelve feet and a chestnut oak eleven feet in circumference were observed. In addition to these evidences of age, the Professor states that six feet of stratified sands and clays have formed around the mounds since they were deserted. (See Eighth Annual Report of Peabody Museum, pp. 16 et seq. Cambridge, 1875.)

Mr. A. J. Conant, in a very able paper published in the Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences for April 5, 1876, has more fully described the mound works near New Madrid. On the western bank of the Bayou St. John, partly in a cypress swamp covered with heavy timber and partly on adjacent prairie land, an earthwork encloses an area of about fifty acres. In this enclosure are three large mounds, one of which is pyramidal in form and still has traces of a graded way. An ancient well is discernible near it. A circular mound at the opposite end of the enclosure is estimated by Mr. Conant to have afforded a place of burial for a thousand individuals. The bodies were buried with their heads pointing toward the centre of the mound. A gourd-shaped vase, a small jug or drinking vessel, and an earthen pan or platter was found with each skeleton. The mouths of the vases were fashioned into the form of the head of some bird or the figure of some animal or of a human female. In depressions about three feet deep, within the enclosure, remains of burnt clay ovens were found. Fire-places were disclosed, as well as fragments of earthen vessels capable of holding ten or twelve gallons. The veritable kitchens of the Mound-builders, with their furniture, seem to have been brought to light. In front of the enclosure and projecting out into the bayou, are tongues of land about thirty feet long by ten or fifteen feet in width, and about the same distance apart, “resembling upon a small scale the wharves of a seaport town.” Mr. Conant pronounces them artificial, and that when employed by these builders, the present cypress swamp was the channel of a river. The multitude of mound works which are scattered over the entire south-eastern portion of Missouri indicate that the region “was once inhabited by a population so numerous, that in comparison its present occupants are only as the scattered pioneers of a newly-settled country.”[61]

Prof. C. G. Forshey in Foster’s Pre-Historic Races, presents most valuable information relative to the mounds in the south-west. His observations convince us that the State of Louisiana and the valleys of the Arkansas and Red Rivers were not only the most thickly populated wing of the Mound-builder domain, but also furnish us with remains presenting affinities with the great works of Mexico so striking that no doubt can longer exist that the same people were the architects of both. He describes works, some of them of immense proportions, on the Mississippi fifty miles above Vicksburg; on Walnut Bayou; the south-west bend of Lake St. Joseph, and at Trinity in the parish of Catahoula, Louisiana. On the east bank of the Little River, a couple of miles above its mouth, where it empties into Lake Ocalohoola, stands a bluff walled with roughly hewn stone. The same writer observed a mound near Natchez twenty-five feet high, standing isolated in a swamp. This mound is one among many in different parts of the lower Mississippi region surmounted by comparatively younger trees than are found on the remains farther north. Works occur in the Atchafalaya basin, in the rear of Baton Rouge, on the uplands of Lake Pontchartrain and on the banks of Bayou Gros Tête. A remarkable group of truncated pyramids, peculiarly Mexican in their style of architecture, exist in Madison Parish, Louisiana, and are figured in Squier and Davis and copied by Foster.[62] It is needless to discuss the fact that the works of the Mound-builders exist in considerable numbers in Texas, extending across the Rio Grande into Mexico, establishing an unmistakable relationship as well as actual union between the truncated pyramids of the Mississippi Valley and the Tocalli of Mexico and the countries further south.[63] There can be no doubt as to the unity of the origin of the works in both countries. There are evidences also that the most recent works of Louisiana and Texas do not compare in antiquity with any found in the Ohio Valley, showing it to be altogether probable that the Mound-builders occupied the Lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf coast for a considerable period after they were driven from the northern and central region by their enemies.[64] Several recent writers, with no more proof than that obsidian from Mexico has been found in the mounds, have confidently expressed the belief that the Mound-builders entered the Mississippi Valley and the Central Region from the South. This was based also on the assumption that no remains were found in the North-west. It, however, is proper to note here the marks of architectural progression observable in the geographical distribution of ancient works. Men all around the world have been mound or pyramid builders. To attempt to demonstrate this well-known fact to an intelligent reader by citing the customs of antiquity and the works of the present great Asiatic nations, would seem little less than pedantry rather than the work of serious investigation. The religious idea in man, whether observed in the darkest heathenism or partially enlightened civilization, has always associated a place of sanctuary with the conditions of elevation and separateness. It matters not whether you apply the rule to the practices of the most obscure antiquity, where a hill or natural eminence was the sanctuary of an idol, the residence of a god, or examine the motives which prompt the erection of the dome of a St. Paul or a St. Peter’s, or coming nearer home, analyze the reasons for the construction of the ordinary church spire, the same inexplicable intuition is found at the bottom of them all. The simple mound so common in the northern and central region of the United States, represents probably the first attempts at the imitation of nature in providing a place of worship. In the absence of hills and natural eminences on great plains like the prairies of the North-west (for instance in such cases as are cited on pages 28 and 29), nothing would be more natural than the construction of an artificial hillock, especially if the elements and nature were the objects of worship. The next step might have been again a copy or an imitation, but instead of choosing a subject from inanimate nature, an advance is made in the artistic scale, and the animal kingdom furnishes not only one but varied models for reproduction. The custom among savage tribes of personifying the deity, of dressing him up in some form, tangible and visible, was especially characteristic of the mythology of the Nahua nations of Mexico. It is not necessary to go to Egypt, or India, or China to find animals of various kinds dedicated to and associated with the national gods, for in the Maya and Nahua mythologies, as well as in the traditions of some of the wild tribes of the Pacific coast, the serpent, the coyote, the beaver and the buzzard play an active part. The erection of religious structures representing animals no doubt sacred to the Mound-builders, was carried on to a remarkable extent in Wisconsin. These strange works probably indicate the second step in their scale of architectural progression. In the Ohio Valley, while the ordinary mound is found in great numbers, and a few instances of animal mounds occur, three new architectural features present themselves in marked prominence, all of which are artistically in advance of those existing in the North and North-west. These are the enclosures, the truncated mounds, and principally the truncated pyramids, all of which are a departure from the strict imitation of nature, and exhibit the gradual growth of the architectural idea and the outcropping of the notion of utility. South of the Ohio Valley the animal mounds disappear altogether and the truncated mounds grow less common, while the truncated pyramid, the highest artistic form, with its complicated system of graded ways and its nice geometrical proportions, becomes the all predominant type of structure. In the Lower Mississippi Valley, in some cases, as we have observed, dried brick were used in the walls and angles of pyramids of the most perfect type. Stone was also employed in a few instances. Here we find the transition to Southern Mexico complete. No break exists in the architectural chain.

Squier and Davis (and Foster as well as most other writers have followed their example) classified the works of the Mound-builders as follows:

To this some have added mounds for residence.

It does not fall within the scope of this work to treat of the specific character and uses of the works of the Mound-builders, but rather to note their extent and indications of age with relation to their bearing on the antiquity of man in this country. Some of the arts and manufactures of the Mound-builders are set forth in the illustrations interspersed throughout the chapter.[65] A few of the cuts figure objects found upon the surface. Yet it is not improbable that a due proportion of these objects were of Mound-builder origin.

The domestic arts appear the most advanced of any among this ancient people. Pottery of respectable quality and of varied patterns is abundant among their remains. Coarse cloth woven of vegetable fibre, and in some instances partly made of hair, has been discovered in mounds in several localities. Shell and copper beads for the purposes of ornamentation were made in great numbers. Copper axes of good quality have occasionally been exhumed. Copper and bone needles with well-drilled eyes were made by them. They wove baskets and coarse matting. They carved pipes in stone or moulded them in clay, sometimes in fantastic forms, while again they fashioned them with rare skill into the perfect effigies of animals and birds, or possibly ornamented them with likenesses of their own faces. With the exception of a few observations on the altar and sepulchral mounds, we refrain from a further treatment of the works above classified, as having no particular bearing on the question in hand, and refer the reader to the works of Squier and Davis, and also to that of Dr. Foster, already often quoted. Of the Altar or Sacrificial Mounds, the first-named authors remark: The general characteristics of this class of mounds are: 1. That they occur only within the vicinity of the enclosures or sacred places; 2. That they are stratified; 3. That they contain symmetrical altars of burned clay or stone, on which were deposited various remains which in all cases have been more or less subjected to the action of fire.[66] The same authors present the following section of a mound examined by them at Mound City, near Chillicothe, Ohio, which is a fair sample of the usual stratification observed in altar mounds.[67] The altar which this mound contained was a parallelogram measuring 8 × 10 feet at its base and 4 × 6 feet at its top. It was only eighteen inches in height, and contained a basin with a dip of nine inches. In this basin were found fine ashes, fragments of pottery and shell beads. A reference to the figure shows that the sand-stratum is semicircular, with its extremities resting on the outer sides of the altar. The skeleton shown in the figure designates a point three feet below the apex of the mound where two well-preserved skeletons were found. The strata were disturbed for their burial evidently at a considerable period after the construction of the mound. This is a fair example of the “intrusive burial” practised in the mounds by Red Indians. The same authors found some of these altars rich in relics; one especially in the vicinity of the above-described mound contained nearly two hundred pipes carved in stone. Also a considerable number of pearl and shell beads and copper ornaments covered with silver. It is quite probable that the copper was from their Lake Superior mines, as they alone are known to yield deposits of silver with copper. The same peculiarity was observed with reference to the copper ornaments and implements found in the Marietta works. The pipes secured in this mound were much calcined by heat, and considerable copper had been fused in the basin of the altar. In some of the mounds examined large collections were obtained, and in some instances, articles made of obsidian, which it is believed could be procured nowhere nearer than the Mexican mountains of Cerro Gordo, or the region west of the Rocky Mountains.[68]