Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology

s of determining their antiquity with any approach to accuracy, no scheme of chronology by which their distance from us in

also, that in some cases the works were long ago partly destroyed by streams which have since receded more than half a mile, and at present could not reach them under any circumstances. Those streams generally show four successive terraces, which mark four distinct eras of their subsidence since they began to flow in their present courses. The fourth terrace, on which none of the works are found, marks the last and longest of these periods; and it marks also the time since the Mound-Builders ceased

as by other peculiarities. The decayed bones of Mound-Builders are invariably found within the mounds, never on the surface, usually at the bottom of the structure, and nearly always "in such a state of decay as to render all attempts to restore the skull, or, indeed, any part of the skeleton, entirely hopeless." Not more than one or two skeletons of that people have been re

ct and dry." And yet, when exhumed, they are in such a decomposed and crumbling condition that to restore them is impossible. Sound and well-preserved skeletons, known to be nearly two thousand years old, have been taken from burial-places in England, and other European countries less favorable for preserving them. T

at extent, it is true, although the discoveries are sufficient to show that fragments of skeletons belonging to that age still exist. It is not without reason, therefore, that the condition of decay in whic

Builders, who were a settled agricultural people, whose civilized industry is attested by their remains. If they found forests in the valleys they occupied, these were cleared away to make room for their towns, inclosures, mounds, and cultivated fields; and when, after many ages of such occupation, they finally left, or were driven away, a long period must ha

ing in the soil. The mounds and inclosures were discovered in this forest, with great trees growing in them. Eight hundred rings of annual growth were counted in the trunk of a tree mentioned by Sir Charles Lyell and others, which was

rsity of species characteristic of North America would be established. His suggestion, the result of practical observation and study, is not without reason. It is certain, in any case, that the period when these old constructions were deserted is so far back in the past, that sufficient time has since passed for the abandon

WERE TH

p the valley gradually. After their first communities were established in the Gulf regions, considerable time must have elapsed before their advancing settlements were extended northward, through the intervening region, into the Valley of the Ohio. On the Ohio an

eveloped after their arrival in the country, which is unlikely, many years must have elapsed before colonies went forth, to any great extent, from the original seat of its development. In any case, time was required to make their chief settlements sufficiently old and populous to send forth colonies. It is manifest in their remains that the communities of this ancient people most remote from the populous centres on the

g that people into a condition to construct such monuments, and when we reflect on the interval that must have passed a

ruvians, and calls attention to the disks dug from their mounds, whic

hey had dwelt in the Ohio Valley when this mining began can not be told, but a very considerable period must have elapsed after their arrival at that point before the mines were discovered. We can not suppose the first settlers who came up from

eason; and yet remains of their mining works have been discovered wherever mines have been opened in our day; and, as previously stated, they are known to exist in heavy forests, where the modern mining works have not yet been established. There is nothing to indicate that they had settlements any where in the mining region.

had better means of transportation than bark canoes." It may be said, also, that the accumulations called wealth were necessary to make this regular and systematic mining possible. Without these they could not have provided the supplies of every kind required to

at valley. Their oldest and latest abandoned settlements appear to have been in this region, where, we may reasona

also peculiarities of social and political organization different from those of other tribes. They were sun-worshipers, and claimed that their chief derived his descent from the sun. The Natchez were more settled and civilized than the other Indians, and, in most respects, seemed like another race. One learned investigator classes them with the Nahuatl or Toltec race, thinks they came from Mexico, and finds that, like the ancient people of

t us to believe their stay in the country was short. Any hypothesis based on