266 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



to the art of constructing stationary abodes of clay or stone." While we have no 

 evidence either affirmative or negative respecting their knowledge of astronomy, I 

 think there is strong presumptive proof that they had made considerable ad- 

 vance in the direction of mathematics. In speaking of the Ohio earth-works 

 Squier and Davis say, ^ ' ' There is one deduction to be drawn from the fact that 

 the figures entering into these works are of uniform dimensions which is of con- 

 siderable importance in its bearings upon the stock of knowledge among the 

 people who erected them. It is that the builders possessed a standard of meas- 

 urement and had some means of determining angles. The most skillful engineer 

 of the day would find it difficult without the aid of instruments to lay down an 

 accurate square of the great dimensions of those above represented measuring as 

 they do more than four-fifths of a mile in circumference. We do not only find 

 accurate squares and perfect circles, but also as we have seen, octagons of great 

 dimensions."' 



These remarks apply to a series of works in Ross County, Ohio, which are 

 in sets of one square and two circles, each side of every square measuring i,o8o 

 feet and the diameter of each circle 1,780 feet, all of them accurate mathematical 

 figures. It will be very difficult to explain how these works could have been 

 erected unless the builders possessed some mathematical knowledge. Stoddard,, 

 in speaking of one of the Ohio works says, ^ " This work manifests a degree of 

 mathematical skill not possessed by the aborigines and by few only of those 

 deemed intelligent whites. To suppose it the invention of any other than a 

 skillful mathematician requires a greater extent of credulity than is allowable 

 among men of sense and reflection." 



I think the characterizing their dwellings as " temporary huts of frail perish- 

 able materials " is an error, as there are still existing in many places in Missouri 

 traces of towns and settlements where the vestiges of their habitations may be 

 seen by hundreds, while in very many instances, without doubt, similar remains, 

 have been obliterated by modern agriculture. There are now no traces existing 

 of ancient habitations in the neighborhood of the great Cahokia mound in Illinois, 

 but Brackenridge who visited it in the year 181 1 found them in abundance; he 

 says, ^ "I everywhere observed a great number of small elevations of earth to the 

 height of a few feet, at regular distances from each other and which appeared to 

 observe some order ; near them I also observed pieces of flint and fragments of 

 earthen vessels. I concluded that a populous town had once existed here, simi- 

 lar to those of Mexico described by the first conquerors." Such traces certainly 

 indicate that the dwellings were not temporary huts of frail, perishable materials, 

 but they are exactly such remains as would exist, of houses built of adobe or sun- . 

 dried brick, after exposure to the rains and frosts of centuries in our variable cli- 

 mate; that they used such bricks I am in a position to prove, as in exploring an 

 ancient town site in Scott County, Missouri, I exhumed a large quantity of frag- 



4 Ancient Monuments, page 61. 



5 Stoddard Sketches of Louisiana, page 347. 



6 Brackenridge— Views of Louisiana, page 174. 



