Primitive Architecture in America. 809 



condition which we know to have prevailed among the Puebloes 

 where the communistic state reached sach perfection, and where 

 the social organization was sj compacted, Nor were they, on the 

 other hand, mere confederate tribes, who were full of warlike. 

 exploits, nomadic in habit, and scarcely out of the hunter state^ 

 but they were evidently agricultural, sedentary and thoroughly 

 organized. We quote again from Mr. Jones, who seems to have 

 apprehended the true status of this unknown people : " Why the 

 older Indian tribes should have erected monuments so much more 

 substantial and imposing than those which were constructed by 

 the modern Indians, it is difficult to say. Forming permanent 

 settlements, they devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits; 

 erected temples, fortified localities, worshipped the sun, possessed 

 idols, wrought largely in sLone, fashioned ornaments of foreiga 

 shells, and occasionally of gold, used copper implements, and were 

 not entirely improvident of the future. Such was the fertility of 

 the localities most thickly peopled by them, so pleasant the cli- 

 mate and so abundant the supply of game, that these ancient 

 settlers were in great measure relieved from that stern struggle 

 which, among nomadic tribes and under more inhospitable skies,; 

 constitutes the great battle with nature for life. 



We present a cut to illustrate one class of works common; 

 among the Mound Builders, taken from the work of Squier and; 

 Davis, with it we find the following description: " The principal 

 work consists of an octagon and circle, the former measuring 950 

 feet, the latter 1,050 feet in diameter, * * The walls of the 

 octagon are very bold, and, where they have been least subject to 

 cultivation, are now between eleven and twelve feet in height, by 

 about fifty feet base. The wall of the circle is much less, nowhere 

 measuring over forty or fifty feet in altitude. In all these re- 

 spects, as in the absence of a ditch, and the presence of the two, 

 small circles, this work resembles the Hopeton works." Of the 

 latter, which is nine miles above on the Scioto, they remark that 

 " the walls of the rectangular work are composed of a clayey 

 loam twelve feet high by fifty feet base. * * They resemble 

 the heavy grading of a railway, and are broad enough on top to, 

 admit of the passage of a coach." 



