THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 561 
large majority of them are simply heaps of earth, though stone mounds 
or cairns are quite common, and in Florida they are sometimes com- 
posed almost entirely of shells. As arule, they are homogeneous in 
structure, though occasionally in the Ohio Valley, and especially along 
the Scioto River, there are a few that were regularly and intentionally 
stratified. 7 
This is believed to be a fair statement of all that is known of the 
mounds, considered simply as mounds, and without any regard to their 
contents, or to what is known of them historically. It is taken almost 
literally from Bancroft,* whom I have chosen to follow, for the reason 
that his summary of the results of the explorations of Squier, Lapham, 
and others is just and comprehensive, and because, in a matter of this 
importance, it seemed to me desirable to distrust my own judgment and 
to accept the statement of one who can not be accused of sharing in the 
conclusions to which I have been most unexpectedly driven. 
Asa result of this rapid glance at the story of these remains, when 
told by themselves, it will be seen that although they differ widely in 
form, size, and the evident use for which they were intended, yet they 
are, primarily, nothing but heaps of earth, stones, or a mixture of the 
two, thrown up into the form of mounds and embankments. <A child 
at play on a pile of sand performs on a small scale, and for his amuse- 
ment, the very same kind of labor as that involved in their erection; 
and the beaver and the white ant, in building their dams and nests, 
show a degree of development—a faculty of adapting means to an 
end—but little if any inferior to that displayed by the mound-builder, 
when judged by the same standard. Indeed, we are told that the bea- 
ver dams and washes of Wisconsin sometimes bear a very close resem- 
blance to the so-called serpent mounds, and to the excavations made 
by the Indians in search of lead and other ores;} whilst as a matter 
of fact, the ant hills of Africa, in point ef relative size,i and in the 
architectural knowledge and engineering skill displayed in their con- 
struction, are quite equal to any earthwork in the Ohio Valley. In 
saying this, it must not be supposed that there is any intention of dis- 
paraging the works of the mound-builders. Unquestionably some of 
them are of great size, and exhibit an immense amount of patient toil 
and perseverence; but beyond this they tell us little or nothing. No- 
where, either in laying them out, or in the manner in which the dead 
were sometimes buried in them, can be found any such adherance to 
the principle of orientation as would authorize the inference that the 
people who built and buried in them had advanced beyond the merest 
rudiments of astronomical knowledge; and as for the mathematical 
skill displayed in the construction of their squares and circles, anyone 
* Native Races of the Pucific States, vol. tv, chap. xiii. 
t Antiquities of Wisconsin, l. c., note to p. 11. 
fSome of the hills of the so-called white ants of Africa are 25 feet high, and hon- 
eycombed with galleries. 
H. Mis. 354, pt. 1 
rah) 
