506 THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
do not always go hand in hand, and the fact that a people could have 
executed a piece of work does not, by any means, authorize the con- 
clusion that they did so. Between the two there is, logically speaking, 
a wide gulf which can only be successfully passed by a resort to what 
is known as the law of probabilities. This is unfortunate, but under 
the circumstances it is unavoidable; and although it will, unquestion- 
ably, cause our conclusion to lack somewhat of the force of a scientific 
demonstration, yet it is believed that after making all due allowance, 
there will remain such a volume of evidence in favor of our proposition 
as to justify a favorable decision. In all human probability it will 
never be known who built these mounds in the same sense in which it 
is known who built Westminster Abbey; but if it can be demonstrated 
that the people who erected them were in the same (neolithic) stage 
of civilization that the Indians are known to have attained, and if, 
further, it can be shown on undoubted historic authority that these 
Indians built both mounds and earth-works, which differ in degree but 
not in kind from similar structures that are assumed to have been the 
work of an extinct people, whom we have called the Mound-builders, 
then it must be acknowledged that a strong argument is made out in 
favor of the identity of the origin of the two systems of works. To 
reject this conclusion without some positive evidence to the contrary 
would involve as great an absurdity as it would be to maintain, 
supposing all record of the fact to be lost, that Westminster Abbey 
was built by a people belonging to a different race from that which is 
known, formerly, to have lived in London, and for no better reason 
than because the English of to-day have ceased to build such abbeys. 
This much being premised, we are now ready to take up the thread 
of our investigation; and by way of beginning, let us examine into the 
accounts, given by the early writers, of the mode of life and the civil 
and religious polity of the Indians in order to find out whether there is 
anything that would lead us to conclude, a priori, that it was impossi- 
ble for them to have erected these works. On the part of those who 
hold affirmative views on this point, it is contended that a system of 
works of the size, say of those in the Scioto Valley, would have re- 
quired the united labor of many persons for a long period of time, and 
that as the Indians were hunters—not agriculturists,—and averse to 
labor, they could not have carried it on, for the reason that, owing to 
their wandering and precarious mode of life, the means of subsistence 
would have failed them, even if there had been some central authority, 
or some controlling motive strong enough to impel them to the under- 
taking.* This is believed to be a fair statement of the argument, and 
if well founded, it would be decisive of the matter. Upon examina- 
“Squier, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 45 and 301 et seq.: 
Washington, 1848. Foster, Prehistoric Races of the United States, p. 346: Chicago, 
1873. Baldwin, Ancient Ameriea, p, 34: New York, 1872. McLean, Mound-builders, 
pp. 124 and 5: Cincinnati, 1879. 
