262 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



sense in which Dr. Snyder uses the word. If so, he will doubtless find few arch- 

 aeologists to differ with him. 



Whatever may have been the origin of the mound-building people, there is 

 very little doubt that they were distinctively American in form and feature. Al- 

 though the color of the skin varies considerably, as must be the case on a conti- 

 nent extending through one hundred and twenty degrees of latitude, physical 

 peculiarities exist from which it may be inferred that all the peoples of America 

 belong to a single race bearing some resemblance to the Mongolian nations of the 

 Old World ; but that race is and has been divided into so many nations and 

 tribes, exhibiting such striking contrasts and wide disparities, that the term race 

 as applied to the successive occupants of any particular territory becomes alto- 

 gether too vague to be of any special significance. Prof. J. W. Powell says* : 

 " When America was discovered by Europeans it was inhabited by great numbers 

 of distinct tribes, diverse in languages, institutions and customs. This fact has 

 never been fully recognized, and writers have too often spoken of the North 

 American Indians as a body, supposing that statements made of one tribe would 

 apply to all. This fundamental error in the treatment of the subject has led to 

 great confusion." 



So far as the term " race " is used in its widest sense I agree with Dr. Snyd- 

 er, but I contend that the ancient people who built the gigantic mounds and 

 earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, and who left behind them so many evidences 

 of their skill and taste, although they too were probably divided into several tribes, 

 were a very different people from the barbarous hunters and warriors who lived 

 on the shores of Lake Superior or who ranged through the forests and prairies of 

 that part of the continent which we now call Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and 

 Missouri, when first visited by European explorers. Dr. Snyder must, to some 

 extent at least beheve this to be the case as he uses as illustrations of the condi- 

 tion of the Indian tribes at that date, the Mandans, Choctaws, and Natchez, all 

 of which, but more particularly the two last named, were far in advance of the 

 barbarous tribes by whom they were surrounded and who are supposed by most 

 ethnologists to represent descendants of remnants of the mound-building nations. 

 Therefore, if Dr. Snyder means that the nomadic hunting tribes who occupied 

 the territory' above named when discovered by Europeans were the direct or im- 

 mediate descendants of the people who built the great mounds I certainly differ 

 with him. It is true, as he states, that mere opinions in matters of science are 

 not sufficient to influence the convictions of thinking men, but the conclusions of 

 careful students are always acceptable as exemplifying the effect produced on 

 different minds by the same evidence; however much we may at times differ from 

 them they are always entitled to respect as honest expressions of opinion. I have 

 therefore selected the following extracts from the published writings of some of 

 the gentlemen who are named by Dr. Snyder as supporting his views : 



Squier and Davis say, ^ "The earthworks and the mounds and their con- 



* First Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, page 74. 

 1 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, page 273. 



