81S Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



of life will account for many things, and is a good, working 

 hypothesis, but we cannot class all the pre-historic inhabitants 

 together, and call them Indians, for the works which they have 

 left behind them, and the different grades of architecture seen in 

 these show to us clearly that different modes of life and a differ- 

 ent social status prevailed in each geographical district, the grades 

 of architecture being correlated to them. 



There has been, in our opinion, too much said about the builders 

 of the pre-historic works being all of them Indians. We might as 

 well talk about the historic works of the east being built by man. 

 One term is about as generic as the other. In Australia the word 

 natives denotes the white residents born in the island, but the word 

 aborigines signifies the races which were found there. If we 

 could make the distinction between Indians and Aborigines, 

 calling only those Indians who are known to history as the hunters, 

 and savages, and call the rest by some other name, we should be 

 saved a great deal of confusion. 



They were, no doubt, all of them Indians and Aborigines, hav- 

 ing similar ethnological peculiarities and possibly the same origin. 

 Bat there was as much difference between these same Indians as 

 between the races of whites. We talk about Irish, Dutch and 

 English, and understand that the social life and architectural taste 

 of these races are very different. But they were not so different 

 as those found among the Indians. In fact, the European races 

 are a good deal nearer to one another, both in territorial proxim- 

 ity, ethnic affinities, and social status, than were any of the native 

 American races. The Europeans have, to be sure, reached the 

 position where property in severalty is held, and where landed 

 estates and family names separate households. The American 

 acres were in that tribal condition, all of them, where the com- 

 munistic principle prevailed. The tribal organization was uni- 

 versal, but the social status in the different geographical localities 

 and among the different tribes, was very distinct. If America 

 were compared to Europe in the times of Julius Ctesar, this would 

 be better understood. At that time Britons, Grauls, and Groths 

 were occupjing the .north of Europe. They were the uncivilized 

 races. 



