598 THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
the works of the Southern Indians, such as they have been described 
by the early chroniclers, will compare favorably with anything of the 
same character that has yet been found in the United States. The 
truncated or temple mounds are far more numerous in the States south 
of the Ohio than anywhere else in the Mississippi Valley, and except 
in one or two notable instances, are of larger size; whilst the artificial 
ponds, with canals to feed them, are believed to be peculiar to that 
region. 
Of the other earth-works—the stone cairns, burial mounds, graded 
ways, ditches, and embankments—it can only be said that they are com- 
mon to both sections, and that the only difference between them is in 
their size, or in the order in which they are sometimes grouped together. 
Even in these particulars the advantage is not always on one side, for 
the reason that there is no uniformity in any of the works, and whilst, 
as a matter of fact, the largest and most complicated group of the Ohio 
system exceeds anything that has yet been found in the Gulf States, it 
is equally true that there are mounds and embankments south of the 
Ohio that are larger than are many of those found to the north of that 
stream. Between the giant mass of the Cahokia, Ill., mound and the 
long lines of embankment on Paint Creek, Ohio, and their counterparts 
in Mississippi* and elsewhere in the Southern States,t the difference is 
much less than it is between these same works and the average of those 
of similar character in the northern half of the Ohio Valley. But even 
if there were no such differences, and the groups in the Ohio system of 
works were uniformly of larger size and more complicated pattern than 
can be found elsewhere in the United States, the fact would still be 
without any ethnical significance; otherwise we should have to admit 
that there existed in the Ohio Valley at or about the same time, and in 
close proximity to each other, as many different races or phases of civi- 
lization as there are groups of works, and this would be absurd. 
With the establishment of this point, my task is brought to a close. 
In it I have confined myself almost entirely to the historical proof of 
the recent origin of these works, and except incidentally, have ignored 
the argument that may be drawn from the similarity of burial customs, 
and from the identity of the implements and ornaments found in the 
rounded by earthworks and ditches, forming inclosures of from 3 or 4 to 18 or 20 
acres;’’ and the MS. field notes of the late Mr. Edwin Curtiss, now in the Peabody 
Museum, for the relative situation of some of these inelosures. 
*The great mound at Seltzertown, Miss., according to Brackenridge, Appendix to 
Views of Louisiana, was a truncated pyramid 600 by 400 feet, and 40 feet in perpen- 
dicular height. It was ascended by graded ways, and the area on top embraced 
about 4 acres. At each end of this area, and near the center, were other mounds, 
one of which was about 40 feet high, with a level space at its summit 30 feet in di- 
ameter. The whole was surrounded by a ditch that averaged 10 feet deep. 
t For the size of some of these works, see ante, foot-note t on page 585. Compare 
also Squier, Aborig. Mon. of the Miss. Valley, pp. 113 et seq., and Jones, Antiquities of 
the Southern Indians, p. 163, New York, 1873. 
