84 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



WHO BUILT THE MOUNDS ? 

 By Dr. P. R. Hoy, Racine. 



This question is often asked and variously answered. I 

 purpose to treat the subject with due candor, offering such 

 evidence only, as I consider authentic. Let us have the 

 truth, though it should undermine the fanciful poetic fic- 

 tions that have, from time to time^ been advanced as the true 

 solution of this mooted question. We read in papers and 

 books on this subject, that the great antiquity of works is 

 proven by the trees on or near them that a mound or fortifica- 

 tion must be of great age for the trees were from three to 

 four feet in diameter, or the very indefinite expression, there 

 were large trees growing in such and such a locality. 



Aside from the love of exaggeration, I am persuaded that 

 there is a large margin for error in counting three or four 

 inches of the outer margin of trees and thereupon estimating 

 the age by multiplying the semi-diameter by this partial 

 count. 



The giant trees of California have been over and over 

 again declared to be from three to four thousand years of 

 age. In 1875, J. G. Lemmons was sent to ascertain the ex- 

 act truth and report at the Centennial. On repeatedly count- 

 ing the rings of at least a dozen trees, he found that their 

 ages were from 1,000 to 1,500 years. 



The celebrated tree, the stump of which is used as a floor 

 for a ball room, is just 1.260 years old. Lemmons, during 

 these investigations ascertained that by counting the rings 

 on the outer foot and then, by this, estimating the age, 

 the years would be doubled, for the growths varied from 

 one-third of an inch in the interior, to the thickness of paper 

 on the outside. So after repeated trials, he found that by 

 counting a section one-third of the distance from the inside 

 of the bark toward the centre, the age thus ascertained 

 would correspond with the entire count. This rule was of 

 great value to him in ascertaining the ages of the old pros- 

 trate trees. (Botanical Gazette, Vol. 3, ISTos. 10 and 11.) 



