Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1897-11-08

of two feet with the bones of fishes and
beasts. fragments of pottery, charcoal
and ashes. Even more remarka BILE is
the cave near Guntersville, Ala. Evi-
IDENTIFY it was utilized for many gen
erations as a cemetery, and the num-
Der of dead deposited in it must have
been very great. Though much of its
contents has been hauled away in sacks,
for fertilizing land, the floor Is yet COW
| cred to depth of four feet with ma
terial composed chiefly of fragments
of human bones. In Tennessee and
Kentucky the flesh of bodies stored in
caves centuries ago is sometimes re-
markably preserved.
On a farm in Bollinger county, Mo-,
is an area of considerable extent sur
rounded by an ancient wall of earth
Bbout three feet high in places. In
side of 1t, formerly, were many remark
able mounds used for burial places by
the Indians of prehistoric times, but
40 years of continued cultivation of the
soil have nearly leveled them. Plow-
ing over one of the mounds few years
ago the owner struck something, and,
on digging further in the earth, discov
cred two stone coffins each containing
q skeleton. In one of the coffins he
found a gourd-shaped vessel filled with
lead ore, so pure that he afterwards
turned it into bullets.
In 1879 people in the neighborhood
of town in Mississippi discovered that
the pottery. in which the mounds of
that region were unusually rich, had
| considerable commercial value. The
specimens obtained were sold to mer-
chants. who in turn furnished them to
museums, scientific institutions and
relic hunters.
Reverting to the fact that the mound
builders continued their work after
Columbus, Vespucius, De Soto, Cortez
and Pizarro cursed the ground with
their lawless and brutal heels, it must
be said that articles of Caucasian man
ufacture, obtained by barter on the
coast or from wrecks, quickly found
I their way to the interior of the conti-
nent, passing from hand to hand in the
course of traffic between tribes, or by
capture in war. The system of trade
which existed anciently among the In
dians was surprisingly efficient and sat
isfactory. Aboriginal drummers ac-
tually made their way on foot from the
Gulf of Mexico to the headquarters of
the Mississippi river. The products of
the native mines of copper, flint and
mica were distributed in manner suffi-
GENTLY business-like to be worthy CT
more educated civilization. Dried oys-
| ters and other shell fish were shipped
inland, Just as the same mollusks are
sent from the Atlantic coast to the
cities of the interior to-day. Thus sea
shells are found in the mounds OF Hi
nois and Wisconsin. while articles of
native Wisconsin copper occur in the
tumuli of West Virginia.
That the mound builders were great
smokers is proved by the large number
of pipes found in their mounds and
graves. So numerous are these and so
widely distributed that pipemaking and
pipesmoking may be considered as
marked Characteristic of that ancient
people. This will serve in a way as
supplementary evidence that they were
Indians; for the Indian is par excellence
| TIC man VIM SLhOhSS, dho bhS piPS 10 CD
sential to his happiness.
The correspondent is neither a sci
enlist nor philosopher, and yet may
make suggestion. Maybe nobody will
ever be able to correctly conjecture,
much less prove, where the mound
builders came from. nor who they were.
But is it not q singular fact that they
builded mounds just as the ancient
Egyptians builded pyramids? Has
anyone ever investigated the similar
ity of the methods of the two races I?
May not these mound builders have
been descended from or related to the
Egyptians?
What became of the lost tribes OF
Israel, after they had learned to build
pyramids, making bricks without
, straw?
The mound builders, by their work,
manifestly were more like the pyramid
: makers of Egypt than like any other
people. When we wonder why pyra-
mids were built, should we not at the
same time ask why the mounds were
built, and whether or not they were
built upon the same scientific, supersti-
!, tions or religious theory. and for q
similar purposes SMITH d. FRY.