294 TROPICAL NATUKE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



therefore impute to the builders the wish to make these 

 figures as accurate as possible ; and this wish is a greater 

 proof of habitual skill and intellectual advancement than 

 even the ability to draw such figures. If, then, we take 

 into account this ability and this love of geometric 

 truth, and further consider the dense population and 

 civil organisation implied by the construction of such 

 extensive systematic works, we must allow that these 

 ancient people had reached the earlier stages of a civil- 

 isation of which no traces existed among the savage 

 tribes who alone occupied the country when first visited 

 by Europeans. 



The animal mounds are of comparatively less import- 

 ance for our present purpose, as they imply a somewhat 

 lower grade of advancement ; but the sepulchral and 

 sacrificial mounds exist in vast numbers, and their 

 partial exploration has yielded a quantity of articles and 

 works of art which throw some further light on the 

 peculiarities of this mysterious people. Most of these 

 mounds contain a large concave hearth or basin of burnt 

 clay, of perfectly symmetrical form, on which are found 

 deposited more or less abundant relics, all bearing traces 

 of the action of fire. We are therefore only acquainted 

 with such articles as are practically fire-proof, or have 

 accidentally escaped combustion. These consist of bone 

 and copper implements and ornaments, disks, and tubes ; 

 pearl, shell, and silver beads, more or less injured by 

 the fire ; ornaments cut in mica ; ornamental pottery ; 

 and numbers of elaborate carvings in stone, mostly 

 forming pipes for smoking.^ The metallic articles are 



^ Woven cloth, apparently of flax or hemp, as well as gauges supposed to 

 have been used to regulate the thickness of the thread, have also been found 



