THOMAS.) THE MOUND-BUILDEKS. 603 



ill tliciii iudicate that their authors bekiiiged to one race, and differed 

 but little trom each other in regard to the position reaelied in the grade 

 of culture; but the inference to he di-awn from the expressions aud 

 statements referred to, and in most cases intended to be conveyed by 

 them, is that the mound-builders belonged to one great nation, one 

 people connected together by one system of government. Even where 

 these writers are most guarded their speculations in reference to these 

 monuments are based upon this theory, and their exitressions are con- 

 stantly revealing the fact that their minds are pervaded with this idea. 



The thought that once a mighty nation occupied the valley of the 

 Mississippi with its frontier settlements resting on the lake shores and 

 gulf coast, nestling in tlie valleys of the Appalachian range and skirt- 

 ing the broad plains of the west; a nation with its systems of govern- 

 ment and religion, but which has disai>peared, leaving behind it no 

 evidences of its glory, power, and extent, save these silent, forest-cov- 

 ered remains, has something so fascinating and attractive in it, that 

 once it has taken possession of the mind it warps and biases all its 

 investigations and conclusions. 



There seems to pervade the minds of many explorers, and in fact of 

 some American archeologists, no doubt under the spur of this enchant- 

 ing thought, the hope and expectation that some great and astounding 

 find will yet be made which will contirm this theory. 



One reason why this view has so generally prevailed is, that the con- 

 clusions of later authors have been based mainly on the descriptions 

 and characteristics of the Ohio mounds. For instance, the work enti- 

 tled " The Mound-Builders " by the Rev. J. P. McLean, is— with the 

 exception of the ap])endix — based almost wholly on the statements of 

 Squier and Davis, although tlie author lesided in the very heart of the 

 mound area, and, as his "Archeology of Butler ('ounty '' shows, was 

 familiar with the works of this region. 



Yet in the face of all this is the undeniable fact that, wherever 

 these remains are found we see, as is well known even to the writers 

 who express these views, evidences of warfare, of precautions against 

 attack and surprise, of attempts at defense; not <ilong the borders 

 alone of the mound area, but in every section of it; proving beyond 

 any reasonable doubt a condition of tribal warfare, and hence of tribal 

 divisions. 



It is strange that these writers should so press this idea of a single 

 nation, when in the same work they speak of numerous fortifications 

 scattered over the mound regions, of signal mounds and lookout sta- 

 tions on numberless hills, and of other indications of warfare. To 

 supijose that all these could be accounted for on the idea that they 

 were constructed as a defense against incoming liordes of savages 

 by a people whose ".settlements were widespread as the extent of 

 their (the ^Mound-builders) remains indicate,"' is preposterous, for they 



'Short: Nnrtli Americans of Antiquity, p. 97. 



