THOMAS. 1 OTHER OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 627 



the banks of the Mississippi, probably uot far distant from Ileleua iu 

 Arkansas, and there pi-epared for his descent of the Mississippi, "An 

 old Indian woman who conld not make her est-ape with the rest' asked 

 them why they staid there, since that river overflowed every fom-teen 

 years, and that was the year when it would happen." The prediction 

 proved true, as " the river began to rise on tlie 10th of March and 

 increased so much that on the 18th the water broke in at the gates of 

 the town so that there was no going along the streets two days after 

 without canoes. This inundation was forty days in rising to the lieight — 

 that is, to the 20th of Aj^ril — the river extending itself above 20 leagues 

 on each side, so that nothing was to be seen iu all the country about 

 but the tops of tlie highest trees, the people going about everywhere 

 in canoes." 



The expression " broke in at the gates " shows that this town was 

 surrounded by an earthen wall, and the fact that the people could go 

 from house to house in canoes perhaps shows that they were on mounds. 

 We have, moreover, the statement in the same work that in a town on 

 the same side of the river, a short distance below, some of the houses 

 were on mounds. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the oj)iuion on this point advanced by 

 Squier and Davis, Baldwin, and others, seems to have been generally 

 abandoned, it isre])eated in Bancroft's " Native Races " ^ and Maclean's 

 " Mound Builders." ' 



Another argument used to support the theory of the great antiquity 

 of these works, and hence that which holds that the Indians were not 

 the aiithors of them, is drawn from the supposed great age of trees often 

 found growing on them. It is stated that from one in Ohio a tree was 

 cut (species not given) which presented eight hundred consecutive rings 

 of growth, indicating that at least eight hundred years had elapsed 

 since this work was abandoned. That on another, a chestnut, 23 feet 

 in circumference and having about six hundred rings, was observed. 



From these and numerous other similar cases which might be men- 

 tioned, though but one or two others have been found equal to these in 

 girth and number of rings, it is taken for granted as beyond contro- 

 versy that the mounds of the region mentioned must have been aban- 

 doned at least seven or eight centuries ago, and as several generations 

 of trees must have preceded these giants of the forest, the reasonable 

 inference is that they were abandoned one or possibly two thousand 

 years ago. 



Recent investigations have served to destroy confidence in this 

 hitherto supposed certain test of age, as it is found that even within 

 the latitude of the northern half of the United States from one to three 

 rings are formed each year; and that there is no certainty in this respect, 

 even with the same sijecies in the same latitude. 



' Herrera speaks of this peVson as a man, but Garcilasso aays expressly "a woman." 

 2 Vol. IV. p. 789. ■' Page l.'iS. 



