154 ARCHEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The pyramidal tumuli, usually of moderate elevation, but with a broad base and 

 truncated summit, are without remains, and are generally connected with the cere- 

 monial class of enclosures. At the South, temples and the dwellings of chiefs were 

 placed upon them. 



Dome-shaped mounds, or barroics, tending more or less to a conical form, are 

 very numerous. They may contain a single skeleton, or may be nearly composed 

 of human bones, or they may not have been used for sepulchral purposes. A 

 class of them, within or near enclosures such as have been termed sacred, cover 

 altars and sacrificial relics. 



The pictorial or symbolic mounds are almost exclusively local, and are nearly 

 confined to the single State of Wisconsin. 



All the relics which the seats of ancient habitation have yielded are similar in 

 kind to the utensils, ornaments, and implements of existing races. 



We may regard it as established, that there are not in the valley of the Missis- 

 sippi any remains of edifices from which can be inferred a knowledge of the art of 

 working solid materials into permanent and ornamental buildings for religious or 

 secular purposes. There are no ruins of temples or other structures of stone, 

 wrought by the hammer or the chisel, such as abound in Central America. There 

 are no traces of roads and bridges to connect territorial divisions, or facilitate the 

 commerce of an organized state, such as are found in Peru. There are no distinct 

 evidences of arts and manufactures employing separate classes of population, or 

 conducted as regular branches of industry. There are no proofs of the practice of 

 reducing metals from their ores, and melting and casting them for use and 

 ornament — none of a knowledge of chemistry or astronomy. There are no sculp- 

 tured memorials exhibiting national manners and customs, the religious ideas, or 

 the physical characteristics of the people. In a word, tokens of civil institutions, 

 of mechanical employments, and the cultivation of science and literature however 

 humbly, such as appear among the remains of Mexican and Peruvian civilization, 

 have no positive counterpart in the regions of which we are speaking. What- 

 ever may have been the kind or degree of social advancement attained to by the 

 ancient dwellers in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, those domestic arts and 

 habits of luxury which attend the division of labor and the accumulation of private 

 wealth, had not been sufficiently developed to leave any symbols behind them. 



Yet the great enclosures at Newark, at Marietta, at or near Chillicothe, and in 

 many other localities, with their systems of minor embankments, mounds, and 

 excavations, manifest a unity of design, expressive of concentrated authority and 

 combined physical effort. If those structures were produced by a sudden exertion 

 of these agencies, they would require the presence of large bodies of disciplined 

 men, having experience in such labors, and some regular means of subsistence. If 

 they were gradually formed, or brought to completion by labors at various intervals 

 of time, they imply, in addition to unity of power and action, permanent relations 

 to the soil, and habits inconsistent with a nomadic life. 



Many of these works are also such as we should expect to see appropriated to 

 the religious ceremonials of a populous community accustomed to meet for the 

 common observance of solemn and pompous rites. Their arrangements correspond 





