Some Considerations on the Mound Builders. 57 



lines of embankment were carried on to the lowest bot- 

 tom, down to the river bank. Colonel Whittlesey 

 wrote to me that high water sometimes flowed against 

 and along these embankments. And at Piqua, while 

 most of the works are on the second and third terraces, 

 a portion — a walled avenue, or covered way — extended 

 to the very water's edge. In general, the works are 

 found just where people build now, on ground above 

 the reach of freshets, leaving the lower ground for till- 

 age. Moreover, all the bones found in the mounds 

 belong to animals that lived in Ohio when, it was first 

 visited by Europeans. 



In the South, where, however, the rivers have not 

 the same geological history, large works are found on 

 the river banks. The great mound on the Etowah 

 stands on the river bottom surrounded by a ditch, 

 through which water flowed at high stages of the river. 

 One of the mounds on the Wateree, in South Carolina, 

 stands on land subject to overflow. And Bartram con- 

 jectured that a series of works which he discovered on 

 the Savannah, were built as places of refuge in times of 

 high water. The indications, therefore, are, that when 

 the Mound Builders lived, the river channels and river 

 bottoms were already formed as they now are. 



Another theory has been recently started to prove an 

 extreme antiquity for the mounds. The Cincinnati 

 Medical News, for January of this year, gives a resume 

 of a paper read by J. W. Foster, LL. D., before the 

 Dubuque meeting of the American Association for 

 Science. He speaks of finding "three frontal bones in 

 the Kennicott mound, near Chicago, the only part of 

 the skeletons capable of preservation. The plates were 



