42 
toner's address. 
of the people who built them or the cities whose ruins 
in Colorado command our admiration, there lived and 
perished other races of which we have no knowledge 
and scarcely any remains, because they possessed but 
few implements and constructed their dwellings of 
perishable material."^ 
This hypothesis is strengthened by a class of re- 
mains numerously found throughout the Central and 
Southern States, which have recently engaged the 
attention of many able archaeologists, and which point 
unmistakably to a very early occupation of North 
America. The race which erected these monuments 
must have been numerous and industrious, possessing 
a stable form of government and an acquaintance with 
some of the arts. The monuments they have left are 
distributed throughout the valley of the Mississippi, 
and are perhaps as old and will prove as enduring as 
the Pyramids of Egypt. The people who built the 
mounds were, in my opinion, distinct from and lived 
long anterior to the Indian. We only know of them 
by their peculiar earth-works, and by common con- 
sent denominate them The Mound-Builders." That 
they combined the pastoral and agricultural with 
the hunter's life is probable, from the fact that their 
remains are only found in the midst of the most pro- 
ductive lands. The extent of these works, and the 
time required for their construction, show that they 
must have had an organized, compact population. 
The mounds may be described as of three classes, 
namely, for sacrifice or worship, for defense, and for 
burial. 
^ Mr. Wirt says that there were two races extinct before the Indian 
came to occupy the country. (Mayer's Mexico, p. 260.) 
