GLIMPSES OP FEE-HISTORIC TIMES. 53 



mentary evidence which remains. I could not, with- 

 out several chapters of discussion, give the details of 

 this evidence, but shall devote the remainder of this 

 chapter to some portions of it which especially con- 

 cern my present purpose. 



The features of the old Alleghans, or civilised 

 mound-builders, are preserved to us only by their 

 sculptures and terra-cottas, and principally by the 

 heads represented on the curiously-formed tobacco- 

 pipes, which they devoted in great numbers on their 

 " altar hearths " to their gods or manitous ; and the 

 few skulls which have been secured from the grave- 

 mounds correspond with these representations. They 

 were people with rounded, short, and sometimes high 

 heads ; and features, which while American, were less 

 marked and softer than those of the more barbarous 

 tribes. The same cast of countenance appears, ac- 

 cording to Wilson, on pottery, attributable to the 

 Toltecans or primitive Mexicans and the Central 

 Americans, while the features of the intrusive Aztecs 

 were more of the ordinary Indian type. To illustrate 

 this I give a few profiles that of a mound-builder 

 from a pipe, those of two ancient Central Americans 

 from Palenque, that of a Peruvian from an earthen 

 vase, and that of a woman of the mound-builders, also 

 from an earthen vessel. To contrast with these are 

 an Aztec chief from a Mexican painting, and a mo- 

 dern Mandan Indian belonging to a nomadic tribe. 

 The Toltecan and Alleghan features obviously show 

 the American type softened and refined either by 



