Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-08-18

one of the unanswered questions
hardly more likely TO be definitely
settled than the identity of the man
in the iron mask. The mounds were
built, and the man in the iron mask
did inhabit the Bastile and that is
all that research, aIcneologlcai or
historical, has ever ueen able to find
out about either. One theory. says
Mr.. Bushnell can be readily dis
posed of-they were not burial
mounds. In seven mounds thai
nave been opened on elevated ground
the finding of potsherds, bits of chip
ped ebert and the indication of fire
all on what appeared to have been
the original surface. would point
strongly to their having been the re-
mains of ruins of earth covered
lodges. Early explorers mention
seeing such Indian lodges in differ.
ent parts of the valley.
Mounds, however, that can be part
ly accounted for on the theory that
they are actually the remains of
ruined dwellings-such dwellings as
the traveller Tonti had probably in
mind when he wrote in 1893. IT was
surprised to see the grandeur OF the
village and tn. order of the cot
tages; they were placed in divers
rows being all made of
earth"-are comparatively few in
number. Many of the mounds were
clearly erected as they now exist,
possibly, as elevated sites on which
the builders erected their homes in
the same manner as later the Tran.
plst monks untitled them as an ele-
waited foundation for their cabins.
Mounds of this class are found in
vast numbers in certain sections of
Missouri. more than 500 having been
counted within an area of less than
10 miles in one county. In another
place in the eastern part of the state
more than 500 occur within a three
mile radius. If each of these
mounds were once occupied by sen.
arate habitatfon they indicate there.
fore the presence OF a very large
CtnIeTPQ IN
this part of North America.
In some of the smaller mounds.
however, skeletons have been discov-
cred, but not in such condition as to
suggest that the mound was necessar-
lily the original place of sculpture.
The bones had evidently been dis
tributed after their interment and in
their immediate neignborhood frag-
ments OF pottery and indications of
fire suggest rather the floor of pre-
historic home than the bottom of a
tomb Very few of the mounds have
been carefully investigated, the ex-
cavations demanding a sum of money
that has never yet been at the com
mand of the investigators. What
may be concealed under the surface
of such monumental pile of earth as
Cahokia is, therefore, a tempting
question for psychologists. Cahokia
may be rich in information about it.
self; on the other hand It may contain
nothing but the earth of which 1t is
composed and an occasional bit OF per-
sonal property carelessly dropped by
one workman and carelessly covered
up by the next.
On the surface surrounding the
mounds, and in different parts of the
region in which they stand, however,
there have been many important finda
that throw light upon the past OF the
region as a whole, although they do
not answer the question, How old are
the mounds? Nearly all the speci-
mems yet discovered have been turned
up by the pillow, and belong, therefore,
to period that may have been cen
turtles later than the building OF the
American pyramids" The objects
discovered are chiefly utensils and
implements of stone, shell and pot
terry, often indicating that the owners
had either travelled far to the south
or that there existed primitive com,
mercial relations between widely sep
arated parts of early North America.
! The large so-called agricultural inn
plements have also been found in
considerable number, in one case a
small store of these implements hav-
ing been found together. The most
interesting object yet discovered was
an Indian pipe, carved to represent
human figure, which was unfortunate
ly badly shattered by the pillow that
accidentally unparthad II