PRE.HISTORIC YANKEES. 653 
in religion and industrial art accompanied by a well organized but despotic gov- 
ernment was leading the race to a high stage of civilization. The most lofty of 
these mounds, the pyramid of Kolee Mokee is an antiquity of Georgia; it is 
ninety-five feet in height and 1128 feet in circuit. It is a parallelogram 350 by 
214 feet, and the plane on the summit measures 181 by eighty-two and a half 
feet. On the Lower Mississippi these tumuli assume a more finished form and 
structure. Here we meet with the use of adobes, or sun-dried bricks, in their 
construction, and, in one or two instances, stone is reported to have been used 
as a material. There is little doubt that on the lofty summits of these mounds, 
either in a wooden oratory or under the over-arching sky, the priests performed 
the imposing ceremonials of a highly developed reUgion while the whole com- 
munity watched the mysterious rites with unquestioning devotion. Taking a 
general view of the entire region traversed by the mound builders, and ignoring 
the mound reported from Washington Territory, the temple mounds have not 
been found further north than the great lakes, further east than Virginia or west- 
ward of the Arkansas Valley ; while they are distributed profusely throughout 
the Gulf States near navigable streams and especially along the Mississippi River. 
The barrows which have received the name of altar or sacrificial mounds 
are usually symmetrical cones with rounded summits. In the construction of 
these mounds their builders followed a method which has attracted much 
curiosity as to its signification. Beneath the apex, either on a level with the 
surrounding surface or raised a little above it, altars or hearths of baked clay 
are invariably found, and over this the mound is heaped in concentric layers 
of material, usually of soil, gravel, clay and sand. This hearth evidently pos- 
sessed a sacred importance, and to protect it from desecration, the superimposed 
tumulus was formed in successive strata and of substances of such a nature that 
the least disturbance of its surface would become apparent at once. It is my 
opinion that to these altars the sacred fire had imparted a character which excited 
superstitious veneration. When they had served their purpose, perhaps at the 
command of the priests, the protecting mound was heaped above them in as 
many layers as the caprice, or the wealth, of the owner dictated. In some cases, 
particularly in Iowa and in Clay County, Missouri, these mounds have been 
found with stone structures in the interior, whose use is entirely problematical. 
Human remains are not found in mounds of this character except in cases where 
the modern red Indian has interred his dead in them and left the broken strata 
to tell the story of the desecration. 
The burial mounds, as the name indicates, were places of sepulture ; these 
were probably used as burial places for the rich and the eminent and occasion- 
ally reach very imposing dimensions. Mounds of this class are of all sizes and 
are generally conical in form. Sometimes even the temple mounds were used 
to bury individuals of more than ordinary influence or sanctity. The mode of 
burial was extremely variant ; sometimes the body was placed in a sitting posture, 
sometimes prone upon the face, and again on the back or side. Near by were 
spread the burial offerings, the amulets and the food which primitive and savage 
