area we have thus defined are located the works of the people
we call the Mound Builders. What we wish to do is to learn all about
these vanished people. A great many scholars have written about them,
and large collections of the remains of their handiwork have been made.
There is, however, a great diversity of opinion respecting the Mound
Builders and their culture. So we see we have a difficult subject to
treat of. In order to gain a clear understanding of it, we must describe
the remains more closely. About all we can learn of these people is
from a study of their monuments. We can not call to our aid history
or tradition, or rock-carved inscription, but must resort to crumbling
mounds, broken down embankments; study their location, and observe their
forms. To the studies in the field we must add those in the cabinet, and
examine the many objects found in and above the mounds and earth-works,
as well as the skeletons of the builders of the works. Rightly used,
we can draw from these sources much valuable information of the people
whose council-fires blazed all along the beautiful valleys of the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers in times far removed from us.

Illustration of Mound and Circle.-----------

We will first speak of the simplest form of these works, the ordinary
conical mound. This is the one form found all over the extensive area
designated. They exist in great numbers on the banks of the upper
Missouri, as well as the river bottoms of the South. This cut represents
a very fine specimen of a mound, in this instance surrounded by a
circular embankment. We must not forget that mounds are found all over
the world. "They are scattered over India, they dot the steppes of
Siberia and the vast region north of the Black Sea; they line the
shores of the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean; they are found in old
Scandinavia, and are singularly numerous in the British Islands."<16>

The principle in human nature which leads to the erection of mounds is
living and active to-day. The shaft which surmounts Bunker Hill is but
a modern way of memorizing an event which in earlier ages would have led
to the erection of a mound, and the polished monument which marks the
resting place of some distinguished man was raised for the same purpose
as the mounds heaped over the chiefs and warriors of another age. The
feeling which moves us to crown with steeples or spires our houses of
worship is evidently akin to that which induced old