Official Org-aii of the Kansas City Academy of Science. 
VOL. V. KAXSAS CITY, IMO , SEPTEMBE'il 1891. NO. 9 
Proceed njs of the Kansas C tv Academy of that may lead JOU tO dfilve deeper i;itO 
Science, April, 1891. gubjoct, One that lias as yet been 
The Moiuul Hnilder*. hardly touched in modern research. 
Their works are wide!}' scattered from 
Once upon a time there lived a people; tlie Lakes on the North to Florida and 
we commence this short slcetch in tliis Louisiana on the South, from New York 
rough, old fairy tale style because the and Pennsylvania on the East to Arizona 
only evidence we have of tliis wonderful and New Mexico on the AYest. The 
people is that left us by the most reliable, Mounds in the different parts of the 
as far as she o-oes, of all historians Dame country differ ^i^rcatly in some respects 
Nature. so much so as to lead certain archaeologists 
The facts are written on the open page to say they were made by different tribes 
of Nature and are scattered broadcast or classes of people, but these differences 
over our mighty land. Our hills, our are no doubt due to natural causes and 
valleys, our plains testify to the exis- circumstances, the result of association, 
tence of a powerful, intelligent and in- and the nature of their environments, 
defatigable people. Of them we The mounds left by those living on the 
know nothing, where they originated, outskirts of the nation naturally run- 
how they lived, or where they vanished ning to fortilications and inclosures, 
we can merely conjecture. Nature is a while those living in the interior, in the 
historian that we can not doubt, but she well protected regions running to trun- 
oftenleaves us such interesting mysteries cated cones, flat top parallelograms 
to task the ingenuity, acuteness and the places used fcr worship and council 
researching powers of man. It is not for meetings. 
us in this hasty sketch to decide these In Wisconsin and on the shore of Lake 
questions as to their origin or final dis- Superior and Michigan the mounds are 
appearance which have for the last forty built in the most remarkable and pic- 
years worried the minds of such special- turesque shapes, resembling, if your im- 
ists as Squier , Davis, Lapham, Foster, agination is quite vivid, various animals 
Force and others, but to merely state a and birds peculiar to that region. One 
few interesting facts in this connection, called the "Turtle Mound" has a body 
