The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1884-11-14
PREHISTORIC RACES.
Their Ruins and Relics I'm Northern Mexico
Remains of n Great People.

have rambled among the sunless
catacombs at Rome, and read the sem
fences cut in old Latin along its won
derful walls; have even had the novel
pleasure of witnessing the excavations
made by DR.. Henry Schliemann in the
gigantic graves of lava that have held
Pompeii, and have seen him decipher
hieroglyphics that flowed from pens in
ancient times. But | was not impress
ed then as l have been lately when ex-
aiming the picture writings of the
mysterious mound-builders, not unlike
Egyptian hieratic script.
Along the frontier of Mexico are the
footprints, one might say, of these pre-
historic people, and many scientific
Crusoe has seen these footsteps and
been startled. Builders of monumcn-
tai mounds, cliff-dwellers, with histo-
whose pages have never been perused,
this mosteriously moving, this ever
stirring, this nomadic nation left as
slight track among the mountains of
Mexico as do the Bedouins on the sandy
Sahara.
1t is known that the mound-builders
selected as points of departure for the
South, Vancouver's Island and the
neighboring mainland. Back of that
period it appears impossible to trace
them. Whether the wandering few
rested there and the curse of eternal
progress was lifted; whether fugitives
from the terrible face of the Tartar
found there the nucleus of a new ma
ton, will all remain o part of the arch
ixyac hxr .;,..,>
seems absolutely in oblivion.
From this vicinity they were led by
following the river courses through the
passes of the mountains into the great
central basin of North America. The
strange people had entered a continent
untrod by man. About that time Troy
was burning on the other side of the
globe, but the mould-builders knew it
not. Irresistibly they drifted South
ward. Striking the headwaters of the
Missouri and the Saskatchewan they
were conducted into the Mississippi
valley. In two great armies they wan
dered till they rested on the banks of
the Mississippi river, one army coming
by the Red river of the North and the
other by the Missouri.
The remains of the mound-builders
are placed under four heads. First,
mounds; second, entertainments or ram
parts; third, mines and excavations;
fourth, arts and manufacturers.
The mounds are classed as temple,
altar, burial, observatory, or residence
mounds. The temple mounds are of
various forms and sizes, distinguished
by their truncatcd tops. The altar
| l., .1N g ~A...x
earth, sand or gravel; beneath this
mound is an altar or hearth of baked
earth, evidently of sacred Importance
In the burial mounds are even yet
found the dusty bones of this people,
sealed in from the air for centuries.
The observatory mounds were simply
signal stations, along which communi-
cations were passed between commune
ties hundreds of miles apart. The res
idence mounds were terraces elevated
above the surface of the ground. The
garden beds and animal mounds of
Ohio are part of the great system of
mound cities erected by these ancient
giants. In fact the animal mounds
here, as in the North, are but immense
bas-reliefs of men, beasts, birds and
reptiles.
They then occupied the various tribu-
taries of the Mississippi, following them
out with wild instinct. Their wan
behring's did not cease till their feet
pressed the Alleghenies on the East,
and till they stood in wonderment by
the dark blue waves of the Mexican
gulf. They drifted into Georgia and
Florida, and also crossed the Rio
Grande into Mexico.
High up on the face of cliffs along
the deep canons of Northern Mexico
are the caves of these curious colonists,
close to eyries of eagles, thousands OF
feet above the valleys. In some cases
path just the width of human foot
leads from the brink of the cliff above
to the month of the caves, in nearly
every instance narrow ledge over
grown with shrubbery. In these caves
they lived and died.
The entertainments and ramparts are
classed as defensive and religious. The
Notifications manifest progress, in the
art of war ut least, as advanced as the
early Greeks and Trojans. The relig-
ious enclosures were usually combina-
tons of gcometrical figures, in which
perfect squares and figures arc found.
The MINING operations of the mound