Januaby 5, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



Foster in his ' Prehistoric Eaces of the 

 United States ' gives the following data :" 



" There is a class of mounds," remarks Pro- 

 fessor Forshey in his manuscript notes, " west of 

 the Mississippi Delta and extending from the 

 Gulf to the Arkansas and above, and westward, 

 to the Colorado in Texas, that are to me, after 

 thirty years familiarity with them, entirely inex- 

 plicable. In my Gfeological Reconnaissance of 

 Louisiana, in 1841-2, I made a pretty thorough 

 report on them. I afterwards gave a verbal de- 

 scription of their extent and character before the 

 New Orleans Academy of Sciences. These 

 mounds lack every evidence of artificial construc- 

 tion, based in implements or other human vestigia. 

 They are nearly round, none angular, and have 

 an elevation hemispheroidal, of one to five feet, 

 and a diameter from thirty feet to one hundred 

 and forty feet. They are numbered by the mil- 

 lions. In many places, in the pine forests and 

 upon the prairies, they are to be seen nearly 

 tangent to each other, as far as the eye can 

 reach, thousands being visible from an elevation 

 of a few feet. On the Gulf margin, from the 

 Vermillion to the Colorado, they appear barely 

 visible, often fiowing into one another, and only 

 elevated a few inches above the common level. A 

 few miles interior they rise to two or even four 

 feet in height. The largest I ever saw were 

 perhaps one hundred and forty feet in diameter 

 and five feet high. These were in western Louis- 

 iana. There is ample testimony that the pine 

 trees of the present forest antedate these mounds. 

 The material of their construction is like that of 

 the vicinity everywhere, and often there is a de- 

 pression in close proximity to the elevation." 



Professor Forshey then proceeds to state that 

 he encountered hundreds of these mounds be- 

 tween Galveston and Houston, and between Red 

 River and the Ouichita; and they were so num- 

 erous as to forbid the supposition of their having 

 been the foundations of human habitations; that 

 the borrowing animals common to the region piled 

 up no such heaps; and finally that the winds, 

 while capable of accumulating loose -materials, 

 never distribute them in the manner above men- 

 tioned. In conclusion, he adds, " In utter des- 

 peration I cease to trouble myself about their 

 origin, and call them ' inexplicable mounds.' " 



Colonel S. H. Lockett, in his report on the 

 topographical survey of Louisiana,' speaks of 

 them as follows: 



There is one. feature observed in these prairies, 

 as well as in much of the bottom lands of Ouachita 



^ Foster, J. W., ' Prehistoric Races of the United 

 States,' 2d ed., Chicago, 1873, pp. 121-122. 



"First Ann. Rept. Topog. Surv. La. for 1869, 

 1870, pp. 66-67. 



and Moorehouse parishes, quite peculiar and strik- 

 ing, namely, a very great number of small isolated 

 mounds. * * * They are thought by the in- 

 habitants to be Indian mounds, and some of them 

 have been excavated and Indian relics found; but 

 it is hardly probable that so many tumuli, so 

 irregularly scattered over so large a scope of 

 country, can all be the results of human labor, 

 but rather of natural origin and then subse- 

 quently used in some cases as burying grounds 

 for the aborigines. 



De Nadaillac, in his ' Prehistoric America,' 

 says :* 



Between Red River and the Wichita' they ( ' the 

 Indian garden-beds ' ) can be counted by thousands. 

 According to, Forshey, who described them to the 

 New Orleans Academy of Sciences, these embank- 

 ments can not have served as the foundations for 

 homes of men. Other archeologists are more 

 positive; they consider that these embankments 

 were used for nothing but cultivation, and that 

 they are intended to counteract the humidity of 

 the soil, still the greatest obstacle with which the 

 tillers of the soil of the plains of the Mississippi 

 Valley have to contend. 



The writer has assisted in the excavation 

 of a number of Indian village sites and 

 mounds in Indiana and Kentucky, and has 

 observed and described Indian mounds and 

 village sites occurring in various parts of 

 Louisiana," and feels that the theory of hu- 

 man origin is in no way applicable to the 

 great class of natural mounds which he has 

 observed in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas 

 and along the Iron Mountain Eailroad in 

 southeastern Missouri. The idea of human 

 origin suggests itself at once to every observer, 

 and it strongly attracted the writer when he 

 first examined these natural mounds in Louisi- 

 ana in 1898, but more extended study showed 

 such a hypothesis to be entirely inadequate. 



* ' Prehistoric America,' by Marquis de Na- 

 daillac, translated by N. d'Anvers, 1895, p. 182. 



° Now spelled Ouachita. 



"'Catalogue' of Aboriginal Works of Caddo 

 Bottoms, Louisiana,' La. Geol. Survey, Rept. for 

 1899 [1900], pp. 201-203. [Aboriginal Remains 

 on Belle Isle, Grande Cote, Petite Anse, Louisiana], 

 La. Geol. Survey, Rept. for 1899, pp. 209, 237, 

 2.51-253. 'Notes on Indian Mounds and Village 

 Sites Between Monroe and Harrisonburg, Louis- 

 iana,' La. Geol. Survey, Rept. of 1902, pp. 171-172. 



