78 TEE STONE AGE OF NORTE AMERICA. 



THE STONE AGE OF NORTH AMERICA. 



In the history of North America we can go back by the light of credit- 

 able documents to the year 986, when Biarne, the son of Bardson, set sail 

 from Iceland, and, losing his way, came in sight of Newfoundland. Back 

 of the earliest discovery by our race of this continent of North America 

 must lie the history of the Indian. In Mexico traditional historic accounts 

 take us back as far as the sixth centurj^ And, for a still earlier time and 

 its events, we have to penetrate the surface of this continent itself. The 

 earth holds the further answers to these questions. In a story of ancient 

 G-reece, we read that there was a dispute as to whether Salamis had former- 

 ly belonged to the Athenians or the Megarians. When it was referred to 

 Solon, he caused the graves to be opened. It was found then that their oc- 

 cupants were buried according to the custom of the Athenians, and not of 

 the Megarians. The dead men settled that question. The testimony of the 

 dead Athenians dispensed with the formula of an oath, and was yet ac- 

 cepted. No appeal was necessary after such evidence, just as no statute of 

 limitation could bar a trial of such importance, It was a case of supple- 

 mentary proceedings that commanded respect. 



The earth of this continent shows us that before the Indians there has 

 been a people whom we call Mound-builders — that is, mounds were thrown 

 up here by men whose bones we find in them, lying among rough tools and 

 utensils, and after the mounds we name the race, who, perhaps, were not a 

 different people from the Indians. 



But for these mounds we would not know of the men who built them. 

 They are mentioned in no history, human or divine. What was there be- 

 fore the Mound-builder? I would speak to-night of what must have been 

 long before Ms time — of early^ though perhaps not earliest, man in North 

 America. We must know this early man by our experience of his traces. 



There was a time when stone-throwing was the occupation of grown men 

 of our own race. Stones were used in the warfare of the Celt and the Eo- 

 man. We remember that David, a Semite, used a pebble from the brook. 

 And we shall find that men of other races, and before David, resorted to 

 the same weapon for all the purposes whioh in David's time, and with his 

 race, were partly served by metals. There is not only a parallel to be 

 drawn between our boys and savages in certain ways, but there exists one 

 between these boys of the present and our own men of the past. Just as, 

 when cutting into the crust of the earth, we find the remains of animals 

 and plants which once inhabited its former surfaces, the simpler forms be- 

 low, the more complex above, so we find the remains of man's tools and im- 

 plements in the clays and gravels of the last geological period of the globe, 

 and with a like sequence in their character. The oldest and lowest forms 

 of tools are simplest; the newer and nearer to the present surface, the more 

 varied and eomj^lex. We have seen that the simplest weapon man could 



