The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-01-29
" ANCIENT AMERICA

ANCIENT AMERICA"
At the request of the Smithsonian insti-
tuition, DR.. w. NJ. Clark has made an ex-
animation of the 'lndian mounds, "ceme-
teries, etc., of Tennessee, and his report
is now published. The mounds examined
extend from Florence, Alabama, on the
Tennessee river, diagonally across the state
Of Tennessee, to Monticello, Kentucky,
near the Upper Cumberland river; and in
the western part of Williamson county
alone, where the investigation was princi-
pally made, there are four distinct fortified
camps, as well as numerous mounds and
cemeteries. The mounds that he examined
varied from three to twenty feet in hight,
and from twenty-five to one hundred and
fifty feet in diameter. In these mounds,
he found human bones, specimens of pot
terry, copper utensils, and images made
from stone or baked clay-all of which
will be exhibited at the centennial exhibit
ton. I'll conclusion that he comes to- is
that these mound builders" were the an-
cestors of the present American Indians,
although he is in doubt as to their origin ;
being inclined, however, to the belief that
they were Asia,ics who might have come
by the way of the Behripg straits, by way
of the Aleutian group, from island to is
land, through the Pacific, or been blown
directly across the Pacific by syphoon.
He argues that the Qualifications" we're
simply erected rs means of defense the
cemeteries" as burial places; and the
mounds perhaps both tor outlooks, places
of sacrifice, and burial places for the more
distinguished of the chiefs
In the utensils discovered, he finds u
precise similarity between those of the
" European stone age" with this differ
ence that the Europeans who used the
stone implements were prehistoric and are
only known by their relies, while 'the
" Americans never progressed, and the
" American Indians discovered here con-
" tinued to use the same implements of
" household, and the same weapons of
" warfare, which their ancestors of many
- luOuSduu VI ychio oBo uIouBHt WIN
them from the European continent. "
Which, we may be permitted to say-with
all Difference to 20 eminent an authority as
DR.. Clark-is simply begging the question,
by assuming, in the first place, that the
American Indian Is descended from the
" mound builder" second, that they
learned the use of these utensils from their
ancestors, instead of from people they
may have conquered, or otherwise ; third,
that they learned to use them in any way,
except by instinct, II we may SO term I,
or, fourthly, that they used them at all.
If any fact in regard to the American
Indians is well settled, it is that they were
not idolators, and they alone, OF aboriginal
savages, worshipped "a spirit without the
intervention of symbols or idols, and yet
images, resembling the idols Of India and
China, and which are known to have been
worshppe there. were found by DIR.
CIaik In these Tennessee mounds. DR..
Clark, however, endeavors to .surmount
this really insurmountablc obstacle to the
belief that the mound builders were
American Indians, by suggesting, rather
than arguing, that they may have been the
- efforts of some savage genius to transmit