The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-05-30
ORIGIN OF TELEcRAPHY.
4 System That Was in Vogue Before The
DAYS of Christ.

There was a system of telegraphy be-
tween the site of Chicago and that of
the City of Mexico before the days Of
Morse; before Franklin's discovery; be-
fore the discovery of America by
! Colum bus-perhaps before the days of
Christ.
Such are the assertions of Chicago
Tribune correspondent who asks con-
;sideration of his statements on the fol-
lowing basis:
Chicago was certainly the Northern
terminus of telegraph line whose
other end was in Mexico, at so remote
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 old Tecumseh.
with the earlier race.
The first telegraphic system was en-
ployed some centuries ago by that Curl
Gus race of people that built the huge
mounds of earth that 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 better
name. The race is dead. The last
man of them had passed to his eternal
rest long centuries before this land be-
came the home of modern red men.
But the mighty works of those simple
people live after them. We look upon
their great earth-works, and like
Volney among his ruins can only feel
that to them is due our veneration.
For them we must entertain at least
feeling of respect, being. as they are,
the Last remaining vestiges of race
most remarkable ard most interesting
i. of all the men of earth, springing mys-
teriously into existence, living for CEN
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 peo-
piles of their times, we have no data on
which to base reliable history of this
peculiar race of men. Our antiquari-
ans tell us that they built substantial
cities; that they were tillers of the soil;
that they knew the principles of art;
that they had written language and
a religion; that they had a commercial
system; and that they could send a
message across the country with the
velocity of light.
: A telegraph in prehistoric times. as
we look back upon it, seems certainly
a myth; yet it 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 una
valuable in the hands of primitive peo-
pie.
The Mound Builders telegraphic
system consisted of chain of large
mounds, starting at Chicago, hence
bearing across the country to Prairie
du Chen, Wis, thence down the Mis-
sissippi to Arkansas. and onward in a
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 fire lighted at one
point could be seen distinctly at the
next, and thus that 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 distance of many miles apart, per-
haps half dozen spanning hundred
miles; thus, as may readily be seen,
danger signal could be sent across a
State with the speed of light. Around
these signal mounds are usually
grouped thousands of lesser size, and
sometimes a fertilization or other
earthwork, indicating that a city of
large size had originally existed on the
spot. Thus at Toolesboro, Ia, in adj
dition to one of the most remarkable
Enclosure earthworks of the continent.
there are mounds of all shapes and
sizes, the number running up into the
thousands. No better selection of a
signal station could have been secured
than this. On the very brow of a great
bluff overlooking the Mississippi arc
located the eight huge conical mounds
IF earth upon which the signal fires
were lighted, away back in another age.
of the worlds history, telling tale of
danger or festivity. 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 hum
dreds of miles in either direction.
This Geographic system employed by
the mound-builders is the greatest
wonder of the Western world. Nor is
1t myth as SO frequently originates in
the fertile imagination of the newspa-
per writer; but the mounds and earth
works are there to show for themselves,
and their purpose is self-evident. Now
forests have grown up, so that between
many of the stations the line of obser-
walton is cut off, hence the line is out of
repair; but students of archaeology as
sert and believe that the thousands of
mounds in the long line from Chicago
to Mexico City were, beyond doubt,
signal stations in the first and original
telegraph system.
A Sanitary Wash. HOuaA