Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-09-03
. THE MOUND BUILDERS.
Mystery Of the Great Monument
Found In this Country.

Scattered through the middle west
and in other parts Of the United State:
are more than 10000 monstrous, ode
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 q mile long, some
much smaller. In Newark, o., stands
continuous mound, constructed in g
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 rovers
An infinitely long time must have been
required for erecting each huge earth
shape. Nor were they ignorant saw
ages, for the mounds show deer
knowledge of geometry as we'll 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-
gineering 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
we'll 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
turies ago are often found intact and
mound builders date back at least
several centuries before the time OF
julius Caesar.
Cleverly made pottery and copper
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 mass OF
copper weighing eight tons, resting on
a high platform, ready for removal to
the upper earth. This implies the use
Of we'll constructed mine machinery
Pictures that have been found etched
upon copper and ivory portray much
artistic skill.
From all this it seems that in some
remote age the central part Of North
America was inhabited by a race OF
warlike, industrious, decidedly civiliz-
ed beings who had splendid skill al
building, at the arts Of mining, en-
gineering and higher mathematics and
who fiourished 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,
tion, 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 ol
Indians nor even Of Europeans. Some
archaeologists claim to find strong re-
semblance between the mound build
| ers' skulls and those of the ancient
| Egyptians. If there were any connec-
tion between the two, who can explain
how an Egyptian race chanced tc
| flourish in the middle west?
The fate Of the mound builders Is
as mysterious as the strange people
| themselves. AllSl IedClllllS 81 IlSIl {
civilization and thriving for so long 6
time it seems strange that they should
have been completely destroyed. NJ
satisfactory explanation has ever beer
offered. Perhaps the mound builder:
moved south and became merged will
the Mexican Aztecs or Peruvians, ol
some savage race from the north may
have swept down and utterly destroy.
ed them, or a wholesale pestilence may
have wiped out their nation.
| The weird looking earthen monu.
ments the purpose Of most of then
puzzle to the best archaeologists) are
the sole remaining proof that thi:
great lost American race ever existed
| New York World.
o~fi io1 70