Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1883-06-06
American Antiquities.
American Register.

The San Francisco Examiner tells
that two miles from Mapdan, ON the
bluffs near the junction Of the Hart
and the Missouri rivers, is an old
cemetery of fully 100 acres in extent
filed with bonea Of o giant race. The
vast city Of the dead lies Just east ~
the Fort Lincoln road, TIE ground
has } the appearance of having been
s,isu with trenches piled full Of dead
bodies, both of man and beast. and
covered With several feet of earth. In
many places mounds from eight to ten
feet high and some Of them 100 feet or
more in length have been thrown un
and are filled with homes, broken
pottery, vaGeg of various bright
eolored Aints and agates. The pottery
is of a dark material, beautifully dec.
Grated, delicate in finish, and as light
as wood, showing the work of people
skilled in the arts and possessed Of a
high state of civilization. This has
evidently been grand battle
field where thousands of
men and horses have fallen.
Nothing like a systematic or intelli-
gent exploration has been made, as
only little holes two or three feet in
depth have been dug in some Of the
mounds, but many Of the parts of the
anatomy of man and beast, and beau
tiful specimens of broken pottery and
other curiOsities have been found in
these excavations. Five miles above
Mandan, on the opposite side of the
Missouri, is another vast cemetery as
yet unexplored. An aged Indian
when asked what his people knew of
these ancient graveyards, answered
Me know nothing about them. They
were here before the Red man."
In l849 there was an old Indian of
the Senecas, who had emigrated to
Arkansas, spending a day with Mr..
a pioneer OF the valley of the
Mississippi. When asked who built
the then lofty mounds at Fort Picker.
ing, he gave the very answer above
reeited save that he added the in
quiry whether the white men,
who knew everything, had never
found out" And yet many modern
psychologists believe that these
mounds were products of the toll of
red men of our time. But who built
the old stone fort at Winchester, Ten
nessee, and that other, very Ike it, in
Kentuckv} OF the former, General
Bragg said 1t was constructed in ac.
coruance with the highest rules of
art, and that ten thousand
men properly provisioned could hold
It indefinitely against any farce. Why
do these MOUNDS always mark central
seats Of modern wealth and popula.
ton and commerce. One would infer
though there be mounds in the low.
lands Of the West and South every
that because sites Of modern
CITIES are designated BY greatest worL )
ot'the forgotten race chat they were
to select central seats of Don.
ulations by the same facts that guide
men In our time in locating cities
Great mounds designated Louis.
vile, Cincinnati, St, Louis
Little book (ifs lmmodiate
yieipityl, Tuscuhbia, Huntsville.
Macon, Georgia and Mississippi, apd
Columbus, Georgia, Matches and
other modern centers, As those of
populations, Since these
towns and cities of to-day are pro-
ducts of railways and steamboats, were
there railways and steamers Of this
prehistoric age which we are dream
ing about And since the stone forts
mentioned and Notifications ten miles
east Of Lebanon, Tenn, and those at
Macon, Ca, and countless others like
them were built with parapets, has
tons, banquettes, curtains and all the
defenses used in modern wars against
artillery, must we infer that these old
fellows, Of the mastodon age, used
gunpowder, oannons and dynamite in
war as well as steam in peaceP We
submit the grave inquiry to Smith.
sonian philosophers,