70 A Brief Chapter on Sacrificial Monndi. 



philosophers of antiquity, could be the result only of a long series of 

 nice and patient observations, evincing no slight progress in civilization." 



The location of the temple or sacrificial mounds of the United 

 States, bears, in every instance, an obvious reference to an unob- 

 structed view of the firmament, and especially of the sun in his rising 

 and setting. Structures of this character are most frequently placed 

 upon east and west lines. Judge Yaple, of Cincinnati, who has 

 been familiar from boyhood with the mounds of the Scioto and adja- 

 cent valleys, gives this as their most prominent characteristic ; and 

 other investigators concur in a sinylar observation respecting such 

 works elsewhere. These peculiar features bear direct reference to the 

 same intimate connection between the religious ceremonial and ob- 

 servations of the heavenly bodies which distinguished the Aztec 

 system. 



The generally received opinion as to the astronomical use of the 

 " telescopic tubes" of the Mound-Builders, founded upon observations 

 of a similar instrument represented in sculpture in South America, 

 Central America, and Mexico, may be referred to in this connection. 

 Several of these tubes were discovered in the Grave Creek mound — 

 an elevation of the class described — and in many other mounds in var- 

 ious localities. President John A. Williams, of Daughters' College, 

 Harrodsburg, Kentucky, possesses a tube of this kind, found in a cave 

 in Tennnessee, so peculiarly and exquisitely wrought as to leave little 

 doubt upon this subject, notwithstanding Mr. Jones, in his "Antiqui- 

 ties of the Southern Indians," assigns an entirely different use to these 

 implements. 



What has been said of the pyramidal elevations of North America, 

 aj)plies with almost equal pertinency to those of the southern part of 

 the continent, especially that lying westward of the Andes. Peru is 

 especially rich in the remains of an ancient civilization, existing before 

 the time of the Incas. The region about Lake Titicaca, Old Huanuco> 

 and Tiahuanaco, is covered with the wrecks of a civilization moi-e ad- 

 vanced in the arts of masonry, architecture and sculpture, than any 

 pertaining to the Inca dynasty. Although these remains display cer- 

 tain characteristics which distinguish them in detail from the struc- 

 tures of the north, yet the objects of their construction were evidently 

 similar; and, so far as they relate to the religious ideas of the builders, 

 indicate a sentiment common to all the early American races, which 

 finds no counterpart among the nations of the Old World. Pyramidal 

 elevations, assended by graded ways and terraced structures, are still 

 visible, and by their frequency suggest the same general customs which 



