THK MOUND BUILDERS l\ CANADA. 131 



mode of stating that civilization has not yet reached its highest 

 attainable form." 



Mr. C. N. Bell, of Winnipeg, read a paper on " The Mound 

 Builders in Canada." 



The scientific journals of the day are over-flowing with arti- 

 cles on the mound builders. Some writers take decided ground 

 in claiming for the builders a remote antiquity, while others are 

 equally positive in asserting that they were the immediate ances- 

 tors of our modern Indians. One becomes rather bewildered on 

 finding that prominent champions of the above opposing theories 

 rearrange themselves under different standards when the question 

 arises as to where the Mound Builders came from. While some 

 stoutly maintain that they were an offshoot from Central American 

 stocks, many are confident that they came from the north. An 

 immense number of data are produced as evidence in support of each 

 one of these theories, but one fact seems to have been at least partially 

 overlooked by writers. It is more than passing strange that no 

 systematic attempts have yet been made to follow up towards the 

 north the broad lines of mounds and other earthwork remains left by 

 the mound builders. An immense number of mounds exist in 

 Northern Minnesota and Dakota north of the valley of the Mississ- 

 ippi, and yet little has been done to survey or explore them. Two 

 gentlemen in St. Paul lately informed me that they had surveyed 

 some thousands of mounds in Minnesota, principally, however, south 

 of the source of the Mississippi, but the northern districts were yet 

 virgin soil for the archseologists. Any information therefore that is 

 forthcoming which extends northward the known limits of the mound 

 builders' remains will be extremely interesting and valuable. Com- 

 paratively few archaeologists are aware of the fact that the Missis- 

 sippi River mound system merges into one ranging up to Lake Winni- 

 peg, if not farther. In 1867 two of the ordinary burial mounds of the 

 truncated cone form were discovered on the right bank of the Red 

 River in Manitoba, or, as it was then called, the Selkirk settlement. 

 Some interesting remains were taken from them, including human 

 and animal bones and skulls ; ornaments of shell, bone and stone ; 

 implements of stone, and pottery, all of which (like too many of our 

 Canadian archaeological treasures) were exported to enrich foreign 

 museums. Little or no interest was taken in this matter for a num- 



