ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT. XI.I 



"Add to the paragraph appropriating $25,000 for cou- 

 tinuiug ethnohigical. researches among the North Anitrican 

 Indians the foUowing: 



" '■Five thousand doUars of which shall he expended in continuing 

 archeological investigation relating to mound-builders and prehistoric, 

 mounds.'' " 



This change in the statute was a surprise to the Director, as 

 he had not been informed that such a movement was on foot. 

 In compHance with the terms of the statute the work of inves- 

 tigating the mounds of the eastern half of the United States 

 was at once organized, and Mr. Wills de Haas was placed in 

 charge, -as he was one of the men who had interested himself 

 to have the investigation enlarged. Subsequently, in 1881, 

 Mr. de Haas resigned, and Prof. Cyrus Thomas was put in 

 chare-e of the work, which he has ever since continued. The 

 new line of fesearches thus inaugurated has led to the publica- 

 tion of a number of papers in the reports of the Bureau, and 

 now one more comprehensive than any of the rest is presented 

 by Prof Thomas — a treatise which will be of interest, as it 

 seems to disprove the attractive theory that the ancient tumuli 

 of tlie eastern half of the United States are the remains of a 

 people more highly cultured than the tribes of who were In- 

 dians found by the white man, and who had vanished from the 

 country anterior to the Columbian discovery. The problems 

 raised in the mind of the present Director many years ago 

 seem to have reached a solution. 



It is difficult to exaggerate the prevalence of this romantic 

 fallacy, or the force with which the hypothetic "lost races" had 

 taken possession of the imaginations of men. For more than 

 a Qentury the ghosts of a vanished nation have ambuscaded 

 in the vast solitudes of the continent, and the forest-covered 

 mounds have been usually regarded as the mysterious sep- 

 ulchers of its kings and nobles. It was an alluring conjecture 

 that a powerful people, superior to the Indians, once occupied 

 the valley of the Ohio and the Appalachian ranges, their empire 

 stretching from Hudson bay to the Clulf, with its flanks on 

 the western praii'ies and the eastern ocean; a people with a 

 confederated government, a chief ruler, a great central caj)ital. 



