ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
43 
There is also a class of peculiar ruins, though not 
so numerous as the former, chiefly found in Wisconsin, 
called ''animal mounds," which have been admirably 
described by Dr. Lapham, and supposed by him to be 
totemic.^ The mounds are found from the Lakes 
throughout the Mississippi Valley, with evidences that 
the center of the densest population was in Ohio, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee. But they exist in every 
State from South Carolina to Florida, from Labrador 
and the Lakes to the Mississippi River, around the 
Mexican Gulf, and even in Mexico and across into the 
Pacific States. All these monuments point to the same 
mysterious source. It is difficult to say whether this 
strange race has become wholly extinct, or was the 
progenitor of some of the Indians now living.f The 
•^"Animals of one kind or another have in every age and in every 
country been selected to typify and symbolize both national and relig- 
ious sentiments which it was desirable to have popularized to secure 
unity among a people. Symbols are a kind of natural written language 
with the unlettered; the practice of using them was much more com- 
mon in ancient times than since the invention of an alphabet. We all 
know how effectively the Christian Church has introduced the figures 
of the lamb, the lion, the dove, the serpent, the pelican, the fish, the 
ox, and many others. The figures of animals have also been placed 
upon the flags and ensigns of nations, some adopting real and other 
mythical animal figures. China and Japan have their fabulous dragons, 
other examples will readily occur to every one. I recognize in the 
animal mounds the germ of the same sentiment which develops the 
use of symbols by civilized nations. 
•f E. G. Squier, who gave us the first and most systematic work on 
the mounds and antiquities of the Mississippi Valley, held the view 
that the Mound-Builders were a distinct race from the Indians. When 
he wrote his second work, entitled Aboriginal Monuments of New 
York," he thought he had sufficient evidence to show that the present 
race of Indians had erected the mounds in that section. Since then. 
