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makes the pottery manufacture a much more complicated' 

 matter. Indeed the Indian in token of his surprise at his- 

 success in being even able to construct a canoe, states in his 

 tradition that it is the gift of the Manitou. Furthermore the 

 Mound Builder used metal tools, and was probably a metal 

 worker. It is true the copper implements mentioned, as hav- 

 ing been found were brought to Rainy and Red Rivers. I 

 have, however, pointed out the intimate connection judging 

 by the line of transport subsisting between Rainy River and 

 Lake Superior, the mining locality for copper. To sink a mine 

 in the unyielding Huronian rock of Lake Superior, with mallet 

 and hammer and wedge and fire, take out the native copper, 

 work it into the desired tools, and then temper these requires 

 skill and adaptation unpossessed by the Indians. For cen- 

 turies we know that the Lake Superior mines, in which are 

 found tools and timber constructions, have been buried, filled 

 in for ten feet with debris, and have rank vegetation and trees 

 growing upon them. It is certain that the Indian races, even 

 when shown the example, cannot when left alone follow the 

 mining pursuit. Not only then by the ethnological, and other 

 data cited do we conclude that the Mound Builders belong to. 

 a different race from the present Indians, but the tradition of 

 the Indians is to the same effect. Then 



WHO WERE THE MOUND BUILDERS ? 



I would lead you back now to what little we know from the 

 different sources, of the early history of our continent. When 

 the Spaniards came to Mexico in the early years of the 16th 

 century, Montezuma, an Aztec prince, was on the throne. The 

 Aztecs gave themselves out as intruders in Mexico. They were 

 a bloody and warlike race, and though they gave the Spaniards 

 an easy victory it was rather a reception, for they were over- 

 awed by superstition as to the invaders. They stated that a 

 few centuries before, they had been a wild tribe on the high 

 country of the Rio Grande and Colorado, in New Mexico. The 

 access from the Pacific up the Colorado would agree well with 

 the hypothesis that the chief sources of the aboriginal inhab- 

 itants of America were Mongolian, and that from parties of 

 Mongols landing from the Pacific Isles on the American coast, 

 the population was derived. At any rate the Aztecs stated that 

 before they invaded Mexico from their original home, they 

 were preceded by a civilized race, well acquainted with the 

 arts and science, knowing more art and astronomy in particular 

 than they. They stated that they had exterminated this race 

 known as 



