Mound-Builders. 91 



downfall and perhaps wiped out forever every living repre- 

 sentative of that ancient race, who could leave no more last- 

 ing memorial of their existence and struggles than those 

 mysterious mounds which have given them their name. 



Antiquity of the Mound-Builders. — Upon this point 

 there are many theories, some regarding them as the ear- 

 liest of the Indian tribes. Others give them a very great 

 age and claim them to belong to preadamite man. By far 

 the greater number of archaeologists, however, place their 

 existence at about 2,000 years ago. 



In favor of the latter view we may call as evidence the 

 present forest trees, which, though of great age, still flourish 

 on some of the ancient remains. On one of the mounds at 

 Marietta, Ohio, there stood a gigantic tree, which, when cut 

 down displayed 800 rings of annual growth. In many other 

 places, trees of the age of 750 years have been cut, and under- 

 neath them evidences of previous forests found. One tree 

 750 years old was found to have underneath it, on the walls 

 of one of the forts in Ohio, the cast of another tree of equal 

 size, which would carry us back at least 1,500 years since 

 those trees began to grow on those deserted walls of that 

 ancient fortification. 



We have some data in the vegetable accumulations in the 

 ancient mining shafts near Lake Superior, as well as in the 

 vegetable and other matter deposited in the numerous pits 

 and trenches found among the works. Though these evi- 

 dences cannot give the exact time of their accumulation, 

 yet they give it approximately by comparison with similar 

 recent deposits. 



There is another still stronger argument in favor of their 

 antiquity, viz., the decayed condition of the skeletons. The 

 skeletons of the oldest Indian tribes are comparatively sound 

 while those of the Mound-builders are much decayed. If 

 they are sound when brought out, they at once begin to 

 disintegrate in the atmosphere, which is a sure sign of their 

 antiquity. We know that some skeletons in Europe have 

 lately been exhumed, which, though buried more than 1,000 

 years, are comparatively firm and well-preserved. We are, 



