DIFFICULTIES OF DEVELOPMENT, ETC. 69 



it is well known -that it requires several generations of trees to pass 

 away before the growth on a deserted clearing comes to correspond 

 with that of the surrounding virgin forest, while this forest, once estab- 

 lished, may go on growing for an unknown number of thousands of 

 years. The 800 or 1,000 years estimate from the growth of existing 

 vegetation is a minimum which has no bearing whatever on the actual 

 age of these mounds, and we might almost as well attempt to deter- 

 mine, the time of the glacial epoch from the age of the pines or oaks 

 which now grow on the moraines. 



The important thing for us, however, is, that when North America 

 was first settled by Europeans, the Indian tribes inhabiting it had no 

 knowledge or tradition of any preceding race of higher civilization 

 than themselves. Yet we find that such a race existed ; that they 

 must have been populous, and have lived under some established gov- 

 ernment; while there are signs that they practised agriculture largely, 

 as indeed they must have done to have supported a population capable 

 of executing such gigantic works in such vast profusion for it is 

 stated that the mounds and earthworks of various kinds in the State 

 of Ohio alone amount to between eleven and twelve thousand. In 

 their habits, customs, religion, and arts, they differed strikingly from 

 all the Indian tribes ; while their love of art and geometric forms and 

 their capacity for executing the latter upon so gigantic a scale render 

 it probable that they were a really civilized people, although the form 

 their civilization took may have been very different from that of later 

 people subject to very different influences, and the inheritors of a 

 longer series of ancestral civilizations. We have here, at all events, 

 a striking example of the transition, over an extensive country, from 

 comparative civilization to comparative barbarism, the former having 

 left no tradition, and hardly any trace of influence on the latter. 



As Mr. Mott well remarks: "Nothing can be more striking than 

 the fact that Easter Island and North America both give the same 

 testimony as to the origin of the savage life found in them, although 

 in all circumstances and surroundings the two cases are so different. 

 If no stone monuments had been constructed in Easter Island, or 

 mounds, containing a few relics saved from fire, in the United States, 

 we might never have suspected the existence of these ancient peo- 

 ples." He argues, therefore, that it is very easy for the records of an 

 ancient nation's life entirely to perish, or to be hidden from observa- 

 tion. Even the arts of Nineveh and Babylon were unknown only a 

 generation ago, and we have only jxtst discovered the facts about the 

 mound-builders of North America. 



But other parts of the American Continent exhibit parallel phe- 

 nomena. Recent investigations show that in Mexico, Central Amer- 

 ica, and Peru, the existing race of Indians has been preceded by a 

 distinct and more civilized race. This is proved by the sculptures of 

 the ruined cities of Central America, by the more ancient terra- Cottas 



