s, like some of the ancient people of
Mexico and Yucatan, used wood, sun-dried brick, or some other material
that could not resist decay. There is evidence that they used timber for
building purposes. In one of the mounds opened in the Ohio Valley two
chambers were found with remains of the timber of which the walls were
made, and with arched ceilings precisely like those in Central America,
even to the overlapping stones. Chambers have been found in some of the
Central American and Mexican mounds, but there hewn stones were used for
the walls. In both regions the elevated and terraced foundations remain,
and can be compared. I have already called attention to the close
resemblance between them, but the fact is so important in any endeavor
to explain the Mound-Builders that I must bring it to view here.

Consider, then, that elevated and terraced foundations for important
buildings are peculiar to the ancient Mexicans and Central Americans;
that this method of construction, which, with them, was the rule, is
found nowhere else, save that terraced elevations, carefully
constructed, and precisely like theirs in form and appearance, occupy a
chief place among the remaining works of the Mound-Builders. The use
made of these foundations at Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichen-Itza, shows
the purpose for which they were constructed in the Mississippi Valley.
The resemblance is not due to chance. The explanation appears to me very
manifest. This method of construction was brought to the Mississippi
Valley from Mexico and Central America, the ancient inhabitants of that
region and the Mound-Builders being the same people in race, and also in
civilization, when it was brought here.

A very large proportion of the old structures in Ohio and farther south
called "mounds," namely, those which are low in proportion to their
horizontal extent, are terraced foundations for buildings, and if they
were situated in Yucatan, Guatemala, and Southern Mexico, they would
never be mistaken for any thing else. The high mounds also in the two
regions are remarkably alike. In both cases they are pyramidal in shape,
and have level summits of considerable extent, which were reached by
means of stairways on the outside. The great mound at Chichen-Itza is 75
feet high, and has on its summit a ruined stone edifice; that at Uxmal
is 60 feet high, and has a similar ruin on its summit; that at Mayapan
is 60 feet high; the edifice placed on its summit has disappe