34 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



finish than most of those from mounds. The exquisite, gem-like, war 

 and hunting arrow-tips from Oregon and Arizona; ' • th'efong, slender, deli- 

 cately chipped knife or spear-like implements of agate" and. obsidian from 

 the Pacific coast; the smooth, compact, perfectly moulded pottery from 

 the Pueblos of the south-west; the ornaments, masks, and engraved em- 

 blematic figures of shell, of the Cherokees, Shawnees, and others; the 

 copper tools, weapons, and ornaments around the upper lakes; the care- 

 fully made arrow or spear-heads and knives of flint, the polished celts or 

 hatchets, the symmetrical banner stones and various other forms of dec- 

 orative or so-called ceremonial pieces found so abundantly throughout 

 the Mississippi Valley; — are fully equal and often superior in every respect 

 to objects of the same class taken from the mounds Pipes must be ex- 

 cepted; while those made of Catlinite by the Sioux are as correct in 

 design and as skillfully made, so far as the work is carried, the others 

 ,are unequaled in their minute carvings and their faithful representations 

 of the animal life they are intended to portray. 



Not everything belonging to the builders of the tumuli was interred 

 with them, for the objects are too few as compared with the skeletons; 

 neither was a selection made of personal belongings with reference to 

 certain types or degrees of imagined excellence, for a great variety is 

 sometimes found in a single deposit; nor do surface specimens pertain 

 altogether to either a later or different race, for this would mean that the 

 Mound Builders never mislajd property about their village-sites, and that 

 by a singular coincidence the presumed different race lost on these sites 

 many implements and other articles corresponding closely in appearance 

 to what their predecessors — or successors according to the point of view 

 — had carefully hidden away. 



These facts in themselves suffice to show that the Mound Builders 

 had not reached a stage of culture in advance of some tribes well known 

 to history. But there is ample other evidence to the same effect. 



They had no alphabet. They had no domestic animals or beasts of 

 burden. They knew nothing of the economic use of any metal; copper, 

 galena, hematite, they had in plenty, meteoric iron, gold, silver, in small 

 amounts; all were treated as so many stones to be chipped, beaten, or 

 rubbed into desired tools or gew-gaws. Cement or mortar was unknown. 

 They could not build an upright wall with flat stones. They could not 

 dig a well. They did not wall up a spring. They did not facilitate pass- 

 age up and down the bank of a gravel terrace by constructing a roadway 

 They had no hand mills, not even as rude an implement as a Mexican 

 metate or grinding stone, though corn must have been a staple food. 

 The various objects that have been preserved to the present time, were 

 picked, rubbed, chipped or flaked into shape according to the nature of 

 the material and their intended use. Holes were drilled in pipes and 

 ornaments with a stick, cane-stem, point of antler, horn, or stone, with 

 sand, either dry or wet, as a cutting medium. Mussel-shells, perforated 



