, 1890-04-25
ORIGIN OF TeLsGRAPHY.
a System That Was In Vogue Before tn
Christian Era-sIgnaIs by Lights.

a System That Was in Vogue Before the
Christian Era-signaIs by Lights
There was a system of telegraphy
between the site of Chicago and that
Of the city OF Mexico before the days
of Morse; before Franklin's discovery
before the discovery of America by
Columbus-perhaPs before the days Of
Christ. Such are the assertions of a
Chicago Tribune correspondent who
asks consideration of his statement on
the following basis:
Chicago was certainly the northern
terminus of a telegraph line whose
other end was in Mexico, at so remote
a period Of the worlds history that the
very name Of the race that built it is
buried in oblivion. 1t was not the In
dams. The ancestors of Tecumseh and
Hiawatha are moderns compared with
the earlier race.
The first Geographic system was
employed some centuries ago by
hat curious race Of people that
built the huge mounds Of earth hat
are met with everywhere in the
Mississippi valley and down to the
Atlantic coast. We call the people of
that age simply Mound Builders for
want Of a better name. The race is
dead. The last man of them had
passed to his eternal rest long before
this land became the home Of the
modern redmen. But the mighty
works of those simple people live after
them. We look upon their great earth
works. and like Nolncy among his
ruins, can only feel that to them is
due our vencration. For them we
must entertain at least IA feeling of re
spect, being, AS they are, the last re-
manning yestiges Of n race most re-
markable and most interesting of all
the men on earth, springing hysteri
ously into existence, living for EN-
turtles and finally disappearing as com
pletely from the face OF the earth as
though they never had been born.
Being wholly unknown to other
peoples Of their times we have no data
on which to base n reliable history Of
this peculiar race of men. Our anti
quarIans tell us that they built sub
stantial cities; that they were tillers
of the soil; that they knew the princi-
pies of art; that they had a written
language and "A religion that they had
a commercial system, and that they
could sen "A message acros h
try with the velocity of light.
y telegraph in prehistoric times, as
we look back upon it, seems certainly
a myth, yet il is after all the simplest
thing imaginable. The writer did not
claim for it the electric principle of
the Morse telegraph. The electricity
which Franklin found himself able to
control would have been totally un-
available in the hands of primitive
people.
The Mound Builders Geographic sys-
tenn consisted of IA chain of large
mounds, starting at Chicago, hence
bearing across the country to Prairie
du Chen, Wis, thence down the Mis-
sissippi 10 Arkansas and onward in n
more or less straight line to the ter
minus at the City of Mexico, then the
capital of the Aztec empire. These
mounds were built in the most suitable
locations, so that "a fire lighted at one
point could be seer distinctly at the
next, and thus n signal light could be
hastily transmitted from one station to
another over the thousands of miles
which separate the two terminal points
of the line.
The signal stations are located often
at "a distance of many miles, perhaps u
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 sig
nal mounds are usually grouped thou
sands of a lesser size, and sometimes a
fertilization or other earth work, indi.
eating that a city of n large size had
originally existed on the spot.
Thus at Toolesboro, Ia, in addition
10 one Of the most remarkable inclos
ure e~arthworks of khe continent, there
are mounds Of all shapes and sizes, the
number running up into the thou
sands. No better selection of a signal
station could have 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 festiyity. A light at
this point would be instantly observed
at Muscatine, the next station, twenty
miles to the north, or Flint Hills, now
Burlington, away in the hazy distance,
thirty miles TO the south, and thence
could be transmitted from mound to
mound, from station to station, hun
dreds of miles in either direction.
This Geographic system employed by
tho Mound Builders is the greatest
wonder of the western world. Nor is
1t a myth, as so frequently originates
in the fertile imagination of the news
paper writer, but the mounds and
earthworks are there 10 show for them
selves, and their purpose is self evident.
Now forests have grown up, so that
between many of the stations the line
of observation is cut off; hence the
line is out of repair; but students OF
archaeology assert and believe that the
thousands of mounds in the long line
from Chicago to Mexico City were, be.
yond a doubt, signal stations in the
first and original telegraph system.