Primitive Architecture in America. 303 



in the locality in which the Mound Baildera made their homes. 

 The later Indians sought the forests and made their homes beside 

 the rivers and lakes, but the Mound Builders either sought the 

 prairies or the rich valleys, and erected their largest structures 

 where the land was most fertile, and where the resources of agri- 

 culture were most productive. The conclusion is forced upon us 

 that they were agriculturists. While there are many works which 

 show that they depended upon hunting, and that they also 

 were warlike and erected many works of defense, yet that the 

 peaceful, agricultural life was the prevailing one. is evident. 

 They certainly evidently selected the sites for their homes, more 

 with a view to the agricultural advantages, than to the military. 

 There are many military works which evidently belong to them, 

 but their most complicated and elaborate structures are found in 

 the most fertile- ftigions, in localities favorable to an agricultural 

 life, and yet so secure as to render their permanent settlement 

 possible. The grades of architecture among the Mound Builders' 

 works correspond to this idea, a wonderful correlation existing 

 between them and the topography. The great capital of the 

 Mound Builders of Ohio, for instance, was at Newark. Here it 

 is plain that agricultural life was pursued. The great Circle at 

 Circleville is also in the midst of a rich valley. The works at 

 Chillicothe, at Marrietta, at Portsmouth, were all situated in rich 

 agricultural regions ; even Ft. Ancient, on the Miami, was on the 

 borders of a high but fertile prairie, while the valley of the Miami 

 below furnishes other facilities for culture, as well as resources in 

 its waters. The Great Mound at Oahokia is situated in a fertile 

 region, known as the Grreat American Bottoms, and shows, both 

 in its vast dimensions and the number of surrounding works, that 

 it was in the center of a thickly populated locality. The great 

 mounds at Etowah and Bufaula, Georgia, are also in that fertile 

 region which has been described by the early historians as occu- 

 pied by a peaceful, agricultural people. Descriptions are given 

 by the historians connected with Ferdinand De Soto, of great 

 corn-fields, of numerous villages, of powerful tribes located on 

 the rivers, of chiefs or caciques having their houses on the sum- 

 mits of platforms, and of an industrious and thrifty people. They 



