to the Mound-builders' skeletons than to
those found in the ancient barrows of Europe. Other considerations,
such as stream encroachment, and river-terrace formation, might also
be brought in as presumptive arguments in favor of their great
antiquity.

ORIGIN OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.--This is a question not easily answered.
It brings me into no discredit before the educated world to
acknowledge ignorance on this mysterious point. The study of
Craniology and Philology, in connection with Ethnology, shall alone
throw light on this subject. Dr. Wilson says, in his "Prehistoric Man"
(p. 123), "The ethnical classification of this strange race is still
an unsettled question," and he declares without fear of contradiction,
"that especially concerning the Scioto Mound skull, the elevation and
breadth of the frontal bone, differs essentially from the Indian, and
that the cerebral development was more in accordance with the
character of that singular people, who without architecture have
perpetuated, in mere structures of earth, the evidences of geometric
skill, a definite means of determining angles, a fixed standard of
measurement, and the capacity as well as the practice of repeating
geometrically constructed works of large and uniform dimensions."

Undoubtedly they were skilled in agriculture, from the remains of
ancient garden-beds, which were cultivated in a methodical manner. The
modern Indians give no such evidence of labor. For wherever they are
found they love to roam in undisputed possession of the forest, and
lead an indolent life. Of course I do not assign this as a valid
reason for their not being identified with the Mound-builders. An
ancient race may have a degenerate offspring.

Nor shall I attempt to find in the various inscriptions any clue to
their Hebrew origin, or to identify that ancient people with the lost
tribes, as some have dared to do. Foster inclines to regard them as
emigrating from the tropics, rather than coming from the north.

This would involve us in investigating the antiquity of the Mexican
and Peruvian ruins, where vast works of high architecture and more
advanced civilization were found than among the Mound-builders. There
is little difficulty in concluding that the Aztecs, who occupied
Mexico during the Spanish invasion under Cortez, were the conquerors
of several races that preceded them. Among these conquered races, no
doubt, were the Toltecs, who were afterwards found in such great