The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-05-24


under healthier conditions, unhealthy and
weakened structures are the seat of unus-
ual activity, until they regain healthy,
normal standard-until, in short, Disease
and Weakness are supplanted by Healthy
and strength.-7Ae HeaEALJt Company,
No. 17S Broadacay, New York
Remarkable Structures of the Ancient
Americans.
In a review of the work on "Ancient
America" by John d. Baldwin, the Lon
don -ithen~u"a says:
Not many, perhaps, of those who habit
ually speak Of the " Old and New Worlds"
as geographical expression, fully realize
the idea Of a daul world of civilization and
progress; yet it is certain that side by side
with that of Egypt and Assyria, there grew
up in America another culture, equal, at
one time, in art, power an extent, and al
though, in so far as our existing evidence
enables us to judge, unconnected, yet
greatly resembling in system that on which
our own civilization has been established
and were it not that these two cultures
unfortunately came in contact during the
climax of Spanish ecclesiastical bigotry
and intolerance, the so-called new world
might have boosted of an ancient history
corresponding to our own. So completely,
however, has the law of the survival of
the strongest asserted itself under the in
tiuence of the monkish opponents of
Christianity-so effectually did they sue
coed in snuffing out all trace of art and
culture amongst the people whom they
conquered-that writer's may now be found
who, in the face of the evidence affored by
ruined cities, palaces, acqueducts and
paved roads, deny the claim Of the Ameri-
can continent to any ancient civilization
higher than what might have been derived
from the wild Indians, such as the Iroquos
and the Algonquins, whom the Pilgram
Fathers encountered in the seventeenth
century. Such views as these receive no
support from Mr.. Baldwin. The rifles of
ancient American civilization are to be
found in these separate but nearly contigu-
GUS areas situated near the point of juno
ton of the two continents.
Commencing with the northernmest of
these divisions, commonly known as the
region Of the mound builders, we find in
the neighborhood of the lakes, at the
northern apex of the triangular region
above mentioned, in Michigan, Iowa, Mis-
souri,, and particularly in Wisconsin, a
tract Of country characterized by the pres
ence Of large mounds designed in the form
OF animals, birds, serpents, or men, in
huge relieves. Next to this we have a
district of which the State of Ohio may be
regarded as the nucleus, but which occupi-
ed the whole valley of the Ohio and it's
tributaries, extending into Western Vir-
souri,. The special characteristics of this
area consist Of pyramidal mounds, usually
from six to thirty feet high, but rising in
some cases to sixty and ninety feet; they
were generally square or rectangular, and
were assembled by winding stair-cases on
the outside. This district is also remark
able for lines of entrenchment, from five
to thirty feet high, but rising in some cases
to sixty and ninety feet; they were gener-
ally square or rectangular, and were as
cended by winding staircases on the out
lstr ct 10 al arlya Ia for
lines of entrenchment, from five to thirty
feet high, inclosing usually from one to
thirty acres, but extending at times to 100,
200, and even 400 acres. They frequently
consist of combinations of square and cir
cular figures, the accuracy and perfection
of which prove, as Messrs. Squier and
Davis have remarked, that the builders
possessed some standard of measurement,
and had means of determining angles
There are 10 less than 10000 of these
mounds and $4,000 Enclosures in Ohio
alone. Lower down in the valley of the
Mississippi and along the fertile plains
bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and to
westward over the Rio Grande, the inclos-
ures are smaller and less numerous, and
the mounds though of the same character
and more plentiful, are lower, and consist
of truncated pyramidal platforms. Broad
terraces, elevated passages, aguadas or
artificial ponds, and the use of sun-dried
mains of which approach more closely in
character to those of Central America than
the ruins to the northward. Taken as a
whole, the mound builders appear to have
been inferior in culture to their Central
American and Peruvian neighbors. They
were an agricultural people; yet they made
use of spun cloth, their pottery was in
some cases almost equal to that of Peru,
and there are grounds for supposing that
they had knowledge of astronomy
Their tools and other relics were composed
of copper, silver, porphyry, greensboro and
obsidian. Metallurgy, in the proper sense
Of the term does not appear to have been
introduced amongst them, for their copper
tools were beaten into form, and contained
in some cases bletches Of silver Just as it
is found in the matrix in the pure state on
the shore of Lake Superior, where they
worked it in open cuttings from the sur
face.
Turning to Mexico and Central Ameri-
ca, we find here also the antiquities of this
central region distributed in three distinct
areas. In Chapa, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Iuc-
atan, Honduras, Tehuantepec and Guate-
mala, the ruins consist of stone built cities
and standing upon raised platforms similar
to those found in the lower portion of the
Mississippi valley, in all probability, served
the same purpose. Most Of these ruined