The Monmouth inquirer., 1909-08-19
THE MOUND BUILDERS
Mystery of the Great Monuments
Found In This Country.
RELICS OF A VANISHED RACE.

The Strangely Shaped Structures Are
Thought to Be More Than Two
Thousand Years old-The Enigma
of Those Who Reared Them.
Scattered through the middle west
and In other parts of the United States
are more than 10000 monstrous, odd
shaped mounds Some are built
like forts. others in queer, sharp geo
metrical figures, others shaped like
huge serpents, crocodiles, buffaloes,
turtles, eagles, lizards, dragons with
eggs in their mouths, etc. Some OF
these mounds are mile long, some
much smaller. In Newark, o., stands
a continuous mound, constructed in
perfect circle, more than 5000 feet in
circumference. The mounds are often
covered with trees that are many CEN
turies in age. These strangely shaped
structures are thought to be more than
1000 years old.
Who built them?
Certainly not the North American
Indians. The Indians have ever been
lazy, rowing race, making their live
lihood chiefly by hunting and fishing,
seldom remaining long in one neigh
borhood and using tents or the rudest
huts as their dwelling places.
The mysterious people who built the
mounds were not a race of royers.
An infinitely long time must have
been required for erecting each huge
earth shape. Nor were they ignorant
savages, for the mounds show deep
knowledge of geometry as well as of
astronomy and of the principles of
building. Carefully laid out military
Notifications abound in the mound
builders country, indicating that the
aborigines had martial lore and en-
cheering skill and that they under
stood many modern principles of at
tack and defense.
There are also sepulchral mounds.
some of them sixty feet high. These
contain human bones, skulls, etc, as
well as copper utensils and bits of pot
terry The bones when exposed to air
crumble at once TO dust AS the bones
of Europeans who died twenty CEN
turtles ago are often found intact and
strong, many authorities believe the
mound builders date back at least
several centuries before the time of
Julius Caesar.
CleverIy made pottery and copper or
bronze implements of war and peace
are found all through the mounds.
Ancient abandoned copper mines on
the banks of Lake Superior show that
the mound builders well understood
the art of mining. The workmanship
of the copper bracelets, bronze knives.
etc, prove their skill at the forge.
In one of the prehistoric Lake Su-
perior mines has been found a mass of
copper weighing eight tons, resting on
a high platform, ready for removal to
the upper earth This implies the use
of well constructed mine machinery.
Pictures that have been found etched
upon copper and ivory portray much
artistic skill.
From all this 1t seems that In some
remote age the central part of North
America was inhabited by race of
warlike, industrious, decidedly civil
lized beings who had splendid skill at
building, at the arts of mining, en-
gineering and higher mathematics and
who lourished apparently during nu-
merous centuries. Yet so long ago did
the mound builders cease to exist that
in all Indian folklore there is no men
ton no memory, Of them.
None know where the Indians them
selves came from. Yet they apparent
ly settled in America long after the
mound builders had vanished The
skulls discovered in the mounds are
not shaped in the least like skulls of
Indians nor even Of Europeans. Some
psychologists claim to find strong re-
semblance between the mound build
ers' skulls and those Of the ancient
Egyptians. If there were any connec-
ton between the two. who can explain
how an Egyptian race CHANGED to -four
fish in the middle west?
The fate of the mound builders is
as mysterious as the strange people
themselves. After reaching so high a
civilization and thriving for so long a
time it seems strange that they should
have been completely destroyed. No
satisfactory explanation has ever been
offered Perhaps the mound builders
moved south and became merged with
the Mexican Aztecs or Peruyians, or
some savage race from the north may
have swept down and utterly destroy
ed them, or wholesale pestilence may
have wiped out their nation.