The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-04-21

men. But the mighty works of those sim
pie people live after them. We o
upon their great earthworks, and like
volney among the ruins, can only feel
that TO them Is u our veneration. For
them we must at least entertain a
last remaining vestiges OF a race most re-
markabIe and most interesting OF all the
men Of eartl: springing mysteriously into
existence, living for centuries, and
finally disappearing ms completely from
the lace Of the earth as though they had
never been born.
Being wholly unknown to other peoples
Of their tim Is, we have no data on which
to base a reliable history OF this peculiar
race Of men. Our antiquarians tell US
that they built substantial cities; that
they were tillers Of the soil; that they
knew the principles of art that they had
q written language and n religion; that
they had o commercial system, m that
they could send q message across the
country with the velocity OF light.
A telegram in prehistoric times, as we
look back upon IL, seems certainly a myth
yet Il Is after all the simplest thing imaRin-
able. The writer does not claim for IL the
electric principle Of the Morse telegraph.
The electricity which Franklin found
himself able to control would have been
totally unavailable in the hands OF primi-
tive people.
The mound builders telegraphic sys-
tenn consisted of a chain OF large mounds
starting at Chicago, thence bearing across
the country to Prairie du Chen, wiscon-
sin thence down the Mississippi to Ar
kansas, and onward in n more or less
straight line to the terminus at the City of
Mexico, then the capital of the Aztec en-
pire. These mounds were built in the
most suitable locations, SO that b fire
lighted Mt one point could be seen dis
tinctly at the next, and thus that n signal
light could be hastily transmitted from
n station to another over the thousands
of miles which separate the two terminal
points of the line.
Tho signal stations are located often at
n distance of many miles apart, perhaps
n half dozen spanning a hundred miles;
thus, as may readily be seen, "A danger
signal could be sent across a state with
the speed of light. Around these signal
mounds are usually grouped thousands Of
q lesser size, and sometimes a fortiflcation
or other earthwork. indicating that n city
of large size had originally existed on the
spot. Thus at Toolesboro, Ia, in addition
to one OF the most remarkable enclosure
earthworks OF the continent there are
mounds of all shapes and sizes, the num-
Der running up into the thousands.
No better selection of a signal station
could w been secured than this. On
the very brow of a great bluff overlooking
the Mississippi are located the eight huge
conical mounds of earth upon which the
signal fires were lighted, away back in
another age of the worlds history, telling
a tale of danger or festivity. A light ut
this point would be instantly observed at
Muscatine, the mex station, twenty miles
to the north, or Flint Hills, now Burling-
ton, away in the hazy distance, thirty
miles to the south, and thence could be
transmitted from mound to mound, from
station to station, hundreds of miles in
either direction.
The telegraphic system employed by
the mound builders is the greatest wonder
of the Western world. Nor is il n myth
as SO frequently originates in the fertile
imagination of the newspaper writer; but
the mounds and earthworks are there to
show for themselves, and their purposes
Is self evident. New forests have grown
up SO that between many of the stations
the line of observation is cut Off, hence
thel line is out of repair; Out students of
archaeology assert and believe that the
thousands of mounds in the line from
Chicago to Mexico City were, beyond "A
doubt, signal stations in the first and
original telegraph system.