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 1 
 
 
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 1 
 

 ♦• 
 
PREHISTORIC MAN 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 

 JL 
 
"* -V V 
 
 Cooper* Hois;.!. j.i'.Vi 
 
 i-fc.SirUii.j.'radwX'- 
 
 K ASK ATACHYUH. 
 
 A CHIMPSF-YAN CHIEF. 
 
 Dra,-wn Lj^ .D WiUon.L.t D- li-oni skeicliea t)' Paul Kane. 
 
'.■*■■ 
 
i - 
 
PREHISTORIC MAN 
 
 Researches into the Ongin of Civilisat 
 in the Old and the New IVorld. 
 
 ton 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL WILSON, LL.D.. P.RS.E 
 
 i«ii.Hl»TOBIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND,' ETC. 
 
 THI^D EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 '-yJTH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 MACMILLAN and CO. 
 
 1876. 
 

 168385 
 
 !Etiinburol) iRnibrrisitB ^ttaa : 
 
 THOMAS AND ARCIIIUALD CONSTABLK, PllINrKIlS io HKll JIAJESTV. 
 
IN FOND MEMORIAL 
 
 OF A BROTHER'S LIFE-LONG SYMPATHY 
 
 IN MANY FAVOURITE RESEARCHES 
 
 DEPRIVED BY DEATH OF THEIR P U RPOSED D ED I C ATION 
 ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE LOVED NAME OP 
 
 GEOEGB WILSON, M.D. F.R.S.E. 
 
 LATE KE0IU3 PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE UNIVEasiTT OF KDINir .OH 
 AND DIUECTOR OP THIS INOUSTRL.I. MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND. 
 
! 
 
 i 
 
 (. 
 
 
 1 
 
 _ 
 
 J 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The subject primarily treated of in the following pages 
 is the man of that new hemisphere which was revealed 
 to Europe in 1492. There through all historic centuries 
 he had lived apart, absolutely uninfluenced by any 
 reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient World ; and yet, 
 as it appears, pursuing a course in many respects strik- 
 ingly antilogous to that by means of which the civilisation 
 of Europe originated. The recognition of this is not only 
 of value as an aid to the realisation of the necessary con- 
 ditions through which man passed in reaching the stage 
 at which he is found at the dawn of history ; but it seems 
 to point to the significant conclusion that civilisation is 
 the development of capacities inherent in man. 
 
 The term used in the title was first employed, in 1851, 
 in my Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, where evidence was 
 adduced in proof of man's presence in Britain " long 
 anterior to the earliest indications of the Aiyan nations 
 issing into Europe." It was purposely coined to ex- 
 press the whole period disclosed to us by means of arch- 
 aeological evidence, as distinguished from what i . known 
 through written records ; and in this sense the term was 
 speedily adopted by the Archoeologists of Europe. But 
 the subject thus defined is a comprehensive one ; and in 
 its rapid growth, distinctive subdivisions have been intro- 
 duced which tend to narrow the application of the term. 
 
VIU 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Nevertheless it is still a legitimate definition of man, 
 wherever his history is recoverable solely by means of 
 primitive arts. 
 
 The first edition oi Prehistoric Man, published in 1862, 
 was followed in 18G5 by another, carefully revised in 
 accordance with later disclosures. Since then I have 
 availed myself of fiirther opportunities for study and 
 research in reference both to existing races, and to the 
 arts and monumental remains of extinct nations of the 
 New World. Within the same period important addi- 
 tions have been contributed to our knowledge not only 
 of the arts, but of the physical characteristics of primeval 
 man in Europe. In the present edition, accordingly, 
 much of the original work has been rewritten. Sevcial 
 chapters have been replaced by new matter. Others 
 have been condensed, or recast, with considerable modifi- 
 cations and a new arrangement of the whole. 
 
 The illustrations have been correspondingly aug- 
 mented ; and some of them engraved anew from more 
 accurate drawings. In the first edition they numbered 
 seventy-one. They now amount to one hundred and 
 thirty-four, including several for which I am indebted to 
 the courtesy of Mr. John Evans, F.R.8., to the publishers 
 of Nature, and to the Council of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries of Scotland. 
 
 D W. 
 
 1 
 
 University Collkoe, Touonto, 
 ]Sth November W 5. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Tho Influence of the Discovery of America — The Old World and the 
 New — American Phases of Life — The Term Prehistoric— Influence of 
 Migrations— What is Civilisation? — Domestication — Indian Philo- 
 sophy — Aborigines — The Tartar ; The Arab — 7. anguages of America 
 — Wanderings of the Nations— Fossil Man— Occupation of the New- 
 World, 
 
 CHAPTER II. ' ^ V 
 
 THE rillMEVAL TRANSITION. « .. :■ 
 
 The Latest Migrations — Fonnding a Capital — Beginnings of History — 
 Prehistoric Phases — Non-Metallurgic Eras — Oscillations of the Land 
 — The Glacial Period — Con<litions of Climate — Fossil Mammalia — 
 Tho Flint-Folk of the Drift— Advent of European Man— The Drift 
 Implements — Scottish Alluvium — Proccltio Races — Tlieir Imitative 
 Arts — Man Primeval — His Intellectual Condition — Instinct— Ac- 
 oumulated Knowledge -Primeval Britain — Its Fossil Fauna — 
 Ossiferous Caves — Brixham Cave — Food — Scottish Roindoor — Ameri- 
 cftu Drift — Relics of Ancient Life — Extinct Fauna — Man and the 
 Mastodon — Indian Traditions — Giants — Drift Disclosures — Largo 
 Ovoid Discs — Cave Disclosaros— American Cranial Type — Antiquity 
 of tho American Man, 
 
 PAOE 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 THE QUARRY. ^ 
 
 Tho Quarry— Brixh am Cave— Brixham Flint Implement— Flint Ridge, 
 Ohio— Flint Pits— Drift Quarry Deposits— Traces of Palteolithio Art 
 — Lanooolate Flints — Almond-shaped Fliuis — Tho tShawneea — Tho 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Colorado Indiana — Caches of Worked Flints — Sepulchral Deposits — 
 Cave Drift Disclosures— Illustrative Analogies — Cincinnati Collec- 
 tions — Hornstone Spear-heads — American Neolithic Art — Flint Drills 
 — Modes of Perforatiou — Flint Knives — Razors and Scrapers — 
 Arrow-head Forms — Discoidal Stones — Sinkers and Lasso Stones — 
 Cupped Stones — ArchjBological Theories— Georgia Boulders — Hand 
 Cup-otones — Neolithic Grindstones— Archieological Enigmas — An- 
 cient Analogies, .......... 
 
 PAOR 
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BONE AND SHELL WOllKERS. 
 
 Bone and Ivory Workers —Substitutes for Flint — Proofs of Relative Age 
 — Domestic Bone Implements — Rude Palajolithic Art — Whalebone 
 Workers — Primitive Working Tools — Fish-apears and Harpoons — 
 Artistic Ingenuity — Dravv^ing of the Mammoth — The Madelaine 
 Etchings — Righthanded Workers — Deerhorn Quarry Picks — Bone- 
 bracer or Guard — Birthtime of the Fine Arts — Innuit Carvers of 
 Alaska — Troglodytes of Central France — Post-Glacial Man — Symme- 
 trical Head-Form — Intellectual Vigour — Evidence of Latent Powers 
 — Tawatin Ivory Cawing — Lake-Dwellers' Implements — Cave Im- 
 jdements — Aits of the Pacific Islanders — Carib Shell-Knives — Abori- 
 gines of the Antilles — Caribs of St. Domingo — Cave Pictures and 
 Carvings — Prized Tropical Shells — Ancient Graves of Tennessee — 
 Shell Manufactures — Huron and Petun Graves — Sacred Shell- Vessels 
 — Primitive Shell Ornaments — American Shell Mounds — A Shell 
 Currency— loqua Standard of Value, ...... 
 
 90 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRE. 
 
 The Fire-using Animal — Esquimaux use of Fire — Fuegian Fire-making — 
 Modes of producing Fire — Australian Fire-myth — Men of the Mam- 
 moth Age— Hearths of the Cave-Men — Pacific Root- Word for Fire — 
 Great Cycle of the Aztecs — Rekhuliing the Sacred Fire — Peruvian 
 Sun-Worshi[)pers — Sacrifice of tho White Dog — Sacred Fires of the 
 Mound-Buildora — ludiaii Fire-niaking—Sanctity of Fire- Tierra del 
 Fuego, . , 
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CANOE. 
 
 Tho use of Tools — Tool-usiug Instinct -Rudimentary stage of Art — Primi- 
 tive River-Craft — Tho Guatiahano Canoe — Ocean Navigation — Afri- 
 can Canoe-making— Oregon Cedar Canoea— Native Whalers of the 
 
 It, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pacific — Prehistoric Boat-Builders — Mav\ ai's Canoes — The Polynesian 
 Archipelago — The Terra Australia Incognita — Canoe-Fleets of the 
 Pacific— Primitive Navigation — Portable Boats — The Coracle and 
 Kaiak— The Peruvian Balsa — Ocean Navigators, .... 
 
 xi 
 
 PAOI 
 
 151 
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TOOLS. 
 
 Man the Artificer — The Law of Reason — Indigenous R .t'S — Man's Capa- 
 city for Deterioration — What is a Stone-Period?— Materials of Primi- 
 tive Art — Succession of Races — Indications of Ancient Trade — The 
 Shoshone Indian — Texas Implements — Modes of Hafting — Det-i's- 
 horn Sockets — Stone Knives — Thlinkets of Alaska — Metals of a Stone 
 Period — A ts of the South Pacific -Malayan Influence — Fijian Con- 
 structive Skill — Fijian Pottery — Slow Maturity of Races — The Flint- 
 edged Sword — The League of the Five Nations — Iroquois Predomi- 
 nance — Work in Obsidian and Flint — Honduras Flint In.plements — 
 Sources of the Material— Collision of Kaces — Fate of Inferior Races, 
 
 170 
 
 90 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE METALS. 
 
 Dawn of a Metallurgic Era- Primitive Copjjer- Working — Copper Region 
 of Lake Superior — The Pictured Rocks — Jackson Iron Mountain- - 
 The Cliff Mine— Copper Tools— Ancient Mining Trenches — Great 
 extent of Works — Mines of Isle Royale — Their estimated Age — 
 Ancient Mining Implements — Stone Mauls and Axes — Ontonagon 
 Mining Relics — Sites of Copper Manufactories — Native Copper and 
 Silver — Brockvillo Copper Implements — Lost Metallurgic Arts — 
 Chemical Analyses — Native Terra-Cottas — Ancient British Mining 
 Tools— The Race of the Copper Mines— Chippewa Superstitions — 
 Earliest notices of the Copper Region — Ontonagon Mass of Copper — 
 Ancient Native Traffic— Native tiso of Metals — Condition of the 
 Mound-Builders^Mineral Resources — Antiquity of Copper Workin^',8 
 — Desertion of the Mines, ........ 
 
 108 
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ■'''X:7''^7:'^~^'^'^'''^ ''^ ' ALLOYS. 
 
 The Age of Bronze — An intermediate Copper Ago — European Copper Im- 
 plements — Native Silver and Copper— Tin and Copper Ores—The 
 ('assiterides — Ancient Sources of Tin — Arts of Yucatan — Alloyed 
 Copper Axe-Blados— Bronze Silver-Mining Tool- Peruvian Bronzes — 
 
Sdi CONTENTS. 
 
 Primitive Mining Tools— Native Metallurgic Processes — Metallic 
 Treasnres of the Incas — Traces of an Older Race — Peruvian History 
 — The Toltocs and Mexicans — Adjustment of Calendar — Barbarian 
 Excesses — Native Goldsmith's Work — Panama Gold Eelics — Mexican 
 Metallic Currency — Experimental Processes — Ancient European 
 Bronzes — Teats of Civilisation — Aticient American Bronzes — The 
 Native Metallurgist, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
 
 Earth Pyramids — Monuments of the Moind-Builders — Seats of Ancient 
 Population — Different Classes of Works — Ancient Strongholds — 
 Natural Sites — Fort Hill, Ohio — Iroquois Strongholds — Analogous 
 Strongholds — Fortified Civic Sites — Sacred Enclosures — Newark 
 Eagle Mound — Geometrical Earthworks — Plan of Newark Earth- 
 works, Ohio — A Standard of Measurement — Diversity of Works — 
 Evidence of Skill — The Cincinnati Tablet — Scales of Measurement — 
 Traces of Extinct Rites, ........ 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SEPULCHRAL MC'TNDS. 
 
 Sources of Information — Hill Mounds — The Scioto Mound — The Taylor 
 Mound — The Issaquina Mound — Tlie Elliot Mound — The Lockport 
 Mound — Black Bird's Grave — Scioto Valley Mounds — Symbolical 
 Rites — Human Stwritices — The Grave Creek Mound — Common 
 Sepulchres — Cremation — Scioto Mound Cranium-— Sacred Festivals, 
 
 The Wisconsin Region — Animal Mounds — Symbolic Mounds — Big Elc- 
 ph'ant Mound — Dade County Mounds — Magnitude of Earthworks — 
 Enclosed Work-j of Art — Rock River Works — The Northern Aetalan 
 
 PACiE 
 
 2'29 
 
 256 
 
 277 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SACRIFICIAL MOUNOS. 
 
 Mound Altars — Altar Deposits- Quenching tlio Altar Fires — Mound 
 Hearths — Mound City — Military Altar Mounds — Their Structure 
 and Contents — Significance of their Dcjiosits — Analogous Indian 
 Rites — Transitional Civilisation, ...... 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIIT. 
 SYMnOLIC MOUNDS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 — Ancient Ganlon Beils — The Wisconsin Plains — A Sacr-'il Neutral 
 Land — The Alligator Mound — The Great Serpent, Ohio— Serpent 
 Symbols — Intaglio Earthworks — Suggestive Inferences — The Ancient 
 llace — A Sacerdotal Caste — Auticjuity of the Race — Inferiority of the 
 Indian Tribes, 
 
 Xlll 
 
 PAOK 
 
 303 
 
 256 
 
 CHAPTER XJV. 
 
 NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILISATION. 
 
 The Toltecs — Ixtlilxochitl — The Aztecs — American Architecture— Azta- 
 lan — The Valley of Mexico — Montezuma's Capital — Its Vanished 
 Splendour — Mexican Calendar— The Calendar Stone — Mexican Deities 
 — Tolteo Civilisation — llace Elements — Tlie Toltec Capital — Tezcc- 
 caii raiaces — Their Modern Vestiges— Quetzalcoatl — The Pyramid 
 of Cholula— The Sacred City— The Moqui Indians— The Holy City 
 of Peru — Worship of the Sun— Astronomical Knowledge — Agricxd- 
 ture — The Llama — Woven Textures — Science and Art— Native In- 
 stitutions — Metallurgy — Origin of the Mexicans- Mingling of llaces, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 324 
 
 277 
 
 AUT CHRONICLINGS. 
 
 Imitative Skill — Archaic European Art — Conventional Ornamentation — 
 Imitative Design — Analogies in Rites and Customs — Altar Records — 
 Smelting the Ores — Wisconsin Prairie Lands — The Race of the 
 Mounds — Mound Carvings — Portrait Sculi)turea — American Icono- 
 graphy — Deductions —Non-Indian Type — Other Examples — Antique 
 Iconographic Art — Peculiar Imitative Skill — Animals represented — 
 Extensive Geographical Relations — Knowledge of Tropical Fauna — 
 1 eductions — The Toucan and Manatee — Traces of Migration — As- 
 sumed Indications — Analogous Sculptures — Peruvian Imitative Skill — 
 Carved Stone Mortars — Nicotian Religious Rites — Indian Legends — 
 The Red Pipe-stone Quarry — The Leaping Rock — Mandan Traditions 
 — Sioux Legend of the Peace Pipe — The Sacred Coca Plant — Knis- 
 teneaux Legend of the Deluge — Indications of Former Migrations — 
 Favourite Material — Pwahgnneka — Chinipseyan Customs — Chimp- 
 seyan Art — Babcen Carving- The Medicine Pipe-stem — Indian Ex- 
 piatory Sacrifices — Nicotian Rites of Divination, .... 
 
 355 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOL. L 
 
 r ! 
 
 PORTRAIT OF KASKATACHYUH, a Cuimpseya 
 
 FIO. 
 
 1. Flint Knife, Grinell Leads, 
 
 2. Lewiston Flint Implement, 
 
 3. Flint Disc, Kent's Cavern, 
 
 4. Brixham Cave Flint Implement, 
 6. Lanceolate Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio, 
 
 6. Almond-shaped Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio, 
 
 7. Leaf-shaiied Flint, Sharon Valley, Ohio, 
 
 8. Flint Implement, Licking County, Ohio, 
 
 9. Flint Hoe, Kentucky, 
 
 10. Flint Spear-head, Indiana, 
 
 11. Flint Awl, Mayville, Kentucky, 
 
 12. Flint Drill, Cincinnati, . 
 
 13. Stone Orill, Cincinnati, 
 
 14. Flint Knife, Cincinnati, 
 
 15. Flint Razor, Kentucky, 
 10. Flint Scrapor, Ohio, 
 
 17. Flint Scraper, Ohio, 
 
 18. Foliated Arrow-head, 
 
 19. Lasso Stone, Kentucky, 
 
 20. Cupped-stone, Ohio, 
 
 21. Cupped Boulder, Tronton, Ohio, 
 
 22. Bone Spatula, Keiaa, 
 
 23. Bone Comb, Burghwr, 
 
 24. Bone Comb, Burghar. 
 
 25. Whale's Vertebra Cup, 
 26 to 30. Fish-spears and Harpoons, 
 
 31. Harpoon, Kent's Cavern, 
 
 32. Bone Spearhead, Dordogne Caves, 
 
 33. Fuegian Harpoon, 
 
 34. Fish-spoar, Kent's Cavern, 
 
 35. Fish-spear with bilateral barbs. La Mailelaine, 
 
 36. Fishspear with unilateral barbs. La Madelaine, 
 
 37. Carve«l Baton, or Mace, Dordogne Caves, — - -- 
 
 38. The Mammoth, engraved on ivory, La Madelaine, 
 
 39. Scottish Stone Bracer, 
 
 40. Hunter's Tally, Deershorn, Cro-Magnon, . , 
 
 f Chief. — Fi-ontispiece. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 56 
 
 59 
 
 60 
 
 66 
 
 71 
 
 72 
 
 73 
 
 76 
 
 80 
 
 81 
 
 83 
 
 83 
 
 84 
 
 84 
 
 85 
 
 86 
 
 86 
 
 87 
 
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 99 
 
 102 
 
 103 
 
 104 
 
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 104 
 
 105 
 
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 loe 
 
 107 
 110 
 113 
 
no. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 41. Skull of Old Man of Cro-Magaon-Profile 
 
 t^^ sM? 1 S'' ^^"^ '' Cro-Magnon-Pront View, 
 
 43. SkuU of Old Man of Cro-Magnon-Vertical Viev 
 
 44. lawatin Ivory Carving of Whale, 
 
 45. Tawatin Ivory Carving, 
 
 46. Hog's Tooth Chisel, Concise, '. 
 
 47. British Bone Implements, 
 
 48. Carib Shell Knives, 
 
 49. Tennessee Idol, 
 
 50. Clyde Stone Axe, 
 
 51. Clalam Stone Adze, 
 
 52. Grangemouth Skull, 
 
 53. Texas Stone Axe, hafted, 
 
 54. Texas Flint Implement, . 
 
 55. Chisel and deer's-horn socket. Concise 
 
 56. Stone Knife, Concise, 
 
 57. South Pacific Stone Implements, 
 
 58. Stone Adze, New Caledonia, . 
 
 59. Fijian Pottery, 
 
 60. Honduras serrated Flint Implement, 
 
 61. Honduras State Halberd, flint, 
 
 62. Honduras Flint Implement, [ 
 
 63. Miners' Shovels, Lake Superior, 
 
 64. Miners' Stone Mauls, 
 
 65. Ontonagon Copper Implement, 
 
 66. 67. BrockvUle Copper Dagger and Gouge 
 
 68. Brockvillf) Copper Spear, 
 
 69. Terracotta Mask, 
 
 70. Newark Earthworks, Ohio, 
 
 71. Cincinnati Tablet, 
 
 72. Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio, 
 
 73. Lake Washington Disk, 
 
 74. Mask, Mexican Calendar Stone, 
 
 75. Ticnl Hieroglyphic Vase, 
 
 76. Peruvian Web, 
 
 77. Portrait Mound Pipe, full face, 
 
 78. Portrait Mound Pipe, profile, . 
 
 79. Portrait Mound Pijie, 
 
 80. Manatee, Pipe-Sculpture," 
 
 81. Toucan, Pipe Sculpture, . 
 
 82. Peruvian Black Ware, 
 
 83. Peruvian Stone Mortars, . 
 
 84. Chippewa Pipe, 
 
 85. Babeen Pipe, 
 
 86. Babeen Pipe-Sculpture, [ ', 
 
 XV 
 
 114 
 
 115 
 
 115 
 
 118 
 
 119 
 
 120 
 
 121 
 
 123 
 
 128 
 
 157 
 
 158 
 
 160 
 
 179 
 
 180 
 
 181 
 
 182 
 
 183 
 
 186 
 
 188 
 
 194 
 
 195 
 
 195 
 
 209 
 
 2.10 
 
 212 
 
 214 
 
 216 
 
 217 
 
 269 
 
 274 
 
 282 
 
 318 
 
 333 
 
 334 
 
 349 
 
 366 
 
 367 
 
 368 
 
 373 
 
 376 
 
 380 
 
 381 
 
 392 
 
 393 
 
 395 
 
CHAPTSR I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE INFLDENCE OF TBE DISCOVERY OP AMERICA— THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW- 
 AMERICAN PHASES OF LIFE— THE TERM PREHISTORIC— INFLUENCE OF MIGRA- 
 TIONS— WHAT IS CIVILISATION '—DOMESTICATION— INDIAN PHILOSOPHY— ABO- 
 RIGINES— THE TARTAR— THE ARAB— LANGUAGES OF AMERICA— WANDERINGS OP 
 THE NATIONS— FOSSIL MAN— OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 The recent development of archaeology as a science is 
 due in no slight degree to the simplicity which charac- 
 terises the prehistoric disclosures of Scandinavia, Ireland, 
 and other regions of Europe lying beyond the range of 
 Greek arid Roman influence. But the same element pre- 
 sents itself on a far more comprehensive scab alike in the 
 archaeology and the ethnology of the western hemisphere. 
 America may be assumed with little hesitation to have 
 begun its human period subsequent to that of the old 
 world, and to have started later in the race of civilisation. 
 At any rate it admits of no question that its most civilised 
 nations had made a very partial advancement when, in the 
 fifteenth century, they were abruptly brought into contact 
 with the matured civilisation of Europe. Hence the earlier 
 stages of human progress can be tested there freed from 
 many obscuring elements inevitable from the intermingling 
 of essentially diverse phases of civilisation on old historic 
 areas. In the days of Herodotus, Transalpine Europe was 
 a greater mystery to the nations on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean than Central Africa is to us. To the Ro- 
 mans of four centuries later, Britain was still almost 
 another world ; and the great northern hive from whence 
 
 ^^ 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 A 
 
DISCO VER V OF AMERICA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the spoilers of the dismembered empire of the Caesars were 
 speedily to emerge, was so entirely unknown to them, that, 
 as Dr. Arnold remarks, "The Roman colonies along the 
 banks of the Rhine and the Danube looked, out on the 
 country beyond those rivers as we look up at the stars, and 
 actually see with our eyes a world of which we know 
 nothing." Nevertheless, the civilisation of the historic 
 centres around the Mediterranean was not without some 
 influence on the germs of modern nations then nursing the 
 hardihood of a vigorous infancy beyond the Danube and 
 the Baltic. The shores of the Atlantic and German oceans, 
 and the islands of the British seas, had long before yielded 
 tribute to the Phoenician mariner ; and as the archaeologist 
 and the ethnologist pursue their researches, and restore to 
 light memorials of Europe's early youth, they are startled 
 with affinities to the ancient historic nations, in language, 
 arts, and rites, no less than by the recovered traces of an 
 unfamiliar past. 
 
 But it is altogether different with the New World which 
 Columbus revealed. Superficial students of its monuments 
 have indeed misinterpreted characteristics pertaining to 
 the infantile instincts common to human thought, into 
 fancied analogies with the arts of Egypt ; and more than 
 one ingenious philosopher has traced out affinities with the 
 mythology and astronomical science of the ancient East ; 
 but the western continent still stands a world apart, with a 
 peculiar people, and with languages, arts, and customs 
 essentially its own. To whatever source the American 
 nations may be traced, they had remained shut in for 
 unnumbered centuries by ocean barriers from all the in- 
 fluences of the historic hemisphere. Yet there the first 
 European explorers found man so little dissimilar to all 
 with which they were already familiar, that the name of 
 Indian originated in the belief, retained by the great 
 cosmographer to the last, that the American continent 
 was no new world, but only the eastern confines of Asia. 
 
''] 
 
 THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 nents 
 ; to 
 into 
 than 
 1 the 
 jlast ; 
 i^ith a 
 items 
 rican 
 n for 
 e in- 
 first 
 ,0 all 
 e of 
 I great 
 linent 
 Isia. 
 
 Such, then, is a continent where man may be studied 
 under circumstances which seem to furnish the best 
 guarantee of his independent development. No reflex 
 light of Grecian or Roman civilisation has guided him on 
 his way. The great sources of religious and moral suasion 
 which have given form to medieval and modem Europe, 
 and so largely influenced the polity and culture of Asia, 
 and even of Africa, were effectually excluded ; and how- 
 ever prolonged the period of occupation of the western 
 hemisphere by its own American nations may have been, 
 man is still seen there in a condition which seems to repro- 
 duce some of the most familiar phases ascribed to the 
 infancy of the unhistoric world. The records of its child- 
 hood are not obscured, as in Europe, by later chroniclings ; 
 where, in every attempt to decipher the traces of an earlier 
 history, we have to spell out a nearly ol>literated palimpsest. 
 Amid the simplicity of its palaeography, the aphorism, by 
 which alone the Roman could claim to be among the 
 world's ancient races acquires a new force : " antiquitaa 
 seculi, juventus mundi." 
 
 The discovery of America was itself one of the great 
 events in the most memorable era of the world's progress. 
 It wrought a marvellous change in the ideas and opinions 
 of mankind relative to the planet they occupy, and pre- 
 pared the way for many subsequent revolutions in thought, 
 as well as in action. The world as the arena of human 
 history was thenceforth divided into the Old and the New. 
 In the one hemisphere tradition and myth reach backward 
 towards a dawn of undefined antiquity ; in the other, 
 history has a definite and altogether modern beginning. 
 Nevertheless no great research is needed to show that it 
 also has been the theatre of human life, and of many revo- 
 lutions of nations, through centuries reaching back towards 
 an antiquity as vague as that which lies behind Europe's 
 historic dawn ; and the study alike of the prehistoric and the 
 unhistoric races of America is replete with promise of novel 
 
I 
 
 AMERICAN PHASES OF LIFE. 
 
 [chap 
 
 truths in reference to primeval man. Some of the oldest 
 problems in relation to him find their solution there ; and, 
 amid the novel inquiries which now perplex the student of 
 science, answers of unexpected value are rendered from the 
 same source. ^ 
 
 The study of man's condition and progress in Europe's 
 prehistoric centuries reveals him as a savage hunter, armed 
 solely with weapons of flint and bone, frequenting the lake 
 and river margins of a continent clothed in primeval forests 
 and haunted by enormous beasts of prey. Displaced by 
 intrusive migrations, thip rude pioneer disappears, and his 
 traces are overlaid or erased by the improved arts of his 
 supplanters. The infancy of the historic nations begins. 
 Metallurgy, architecture, science, and letters follow, effac- 
 ing the faint records of Europe's nomadic pioneers ; and the 
 first traces of late intruders acquire so primitive an aspect, 
 that the existence of older European nations than the Celtae 
 seemed till recently too extravagant an idea for serious con- 
 sideration. 
 
 After devoting considerable research to the recovery of 
 the traces of early arts in Britain, and realising from many 
 primitive disclosures some clear conception of the barbarian 
 of Europe's prehistoric dawn, it has bbeir*my fortune to 
 become a settler on the American continent, in the midst of 
 scenes whore the primeval forests and their savage occupants 
 are in process of displacement by the arts and races of 
 civilised Europe. Peculiarly favourable opportunities have 
 helped to facilitate the study of this phase of the New 
 World, thus seen in one of its great transitional eras : with 
 its native tribes, and its European and African colonists in 
 various stages of mutation, consequent on migration, inter- 
 mixture, or coUibion. In observing the novel aspects of 
 life resulting from such a condition of things, I have been 
 impressed with the conviction that many of the ethnological 
 phenomena of Europe's prehistoric centuries are here repro- 
 duced on the gL-andest scale. Man is seen subject to 
 
1.3 
 
 THE TERM PREHISTORIC. 
 
 influences similar to those which have affected him in all 
 great migrations and collisions of diverse races. Here also 
 is the savage in direct contact with civilisation, and exposed 
 to the same causes by means of which the wild fauna dis- 
 appear. Some difficult problems of ethnology have been 
 simplified to my own mind; and opinions relative to 
 Europe's prehistoric races, based on inference or induction, 
 have received striking confirmation. Encouraged by this 
 experience, I venture to set forth the results of an inquiry 
 into the essential characteristics of man, based chiefly on 
 a comparison of the theoretical ethnology of primitive 
 Europe, with such disclosures of the New World. 
 
 Man may be assumed to be prehistoric wherever his 
 chroniclings of himself are undesigned, and his history is 
 wholly recoverable by induction. The term has, strictly 
 speaking, no chronological significance ; but, in iis relative 
 application, corresponds to other archaeological, in contra- 
 distinction to geological, periods. There ai*e modern as well 
 as ancient prehistoric races ; and both are available for 
 solving the problem of man's true natural condition. But 
 also the relation of man to external nature as the occupant 
 of specific geographical areas, and subject to certain in- 
 fluences of climate, food, material appliances and conditions 
 of life, involves conclusions of growing importance, in view 
 of many novel questions to which the enlarged inquiry as 
 to his true place in nature has given rise. If races of men 
 arc indigenous to specific areas, and controlled by the same 
 laws which seem to regulate the geographical distribution 
 of the animal kingdom, the results of their infringement of 
 such laws have been subjected to the most comprehensive 
 tests since the discovery of America. The horse transported 
 to the New World roams in magnificent herds over the 
 boundless pampas ; and the hog, restored to a state of 
 nature, has exchanged the degradation of the stye for the 
 fierce courage of the wild boar. There also the indigenous 
 man of the prairie and the forest can still be seen unaffected 
 
I NFL UENCE OF MIGRA TIONS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Ill 
 
 by native or intruded civilisation ; while the most civilised 
 races of Europe have been brought into contact with the 
 African savage ; and both have been subjected to all the 
 novel influences in which the western continent contrasts 
 no less strikingly with the temperate than with the tropical 
 regions of the eastern hemisphere. The resultant changes 
 have been great, and the scale on which they have been 
 wrought out is so ample as to stamp whatever conclusions 
 can be legitimately deduced from them with the highe. *■ 
 interest and value. 
 
 The consequences following from changes of area and 
 climate play a remarkable part in the history of man, and 
 have no analogies in the migrations of the lower animals. 
 The Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman ; the Hun- 
 garian, the Saracen, and the Turk : are all to a great extent 
 products of the transplanting of seemingly indigenous races 
 to more favouring localities ; but the change to all of them 
 was less than that to which the colonists of the New World 
 have been subjected. There the old process was reversed ; 
 and the offspring of Europe's highest civilisation, abruptly 
 transferred to the virgin fotest and steppes of the American 
 wilderness, was left amid the widening inheritance of new 
 clearings to develop whatever tendencies lay dormant in the 
 artificial European man. -r . y 
 
 Here then are materials full of promise for the ethnical 
 student : — the Ked-Man, indigenous, seemingly aboriginal, 
 and still in what it is customary to call a state of nature ; 
 the Negro, with many African attributes uneflaced, syste- 
 matically precluded until veiy recent years from the free 
 reception of the civilisation with which he luis been brought 
 in contact, but subjected nevertheless to novel influences 
 of climate, food, and all external appliances ; the White- 
 Man also undergoing the transfomiing effects of climate, 
 - amid novel social and political institutions ; and all tlirce 
 extreme types of variety or race testing, on a sufficiently 
 comprehensive scale, their capacity for a fertile inter- 
 
I] 
 
 WHAT IS CIVILISATION? 
 
 f 
 
 mingling of blood. The period, moreover, is in some 
 respects favourable for summing up results as changes are 
 at work which mark the close of a cycle in the novel con- 
 ditions to which one at least of the intruded races has been 
 subjected for upwards of three centuries. 
 
 In Europe we study man only as he has been moulded 
 by a thousand external circumstances. The arts, bom at 
 the very dawn of history, give form to its modern social 
 life. The faith and morals nurtured among the hills of 
 Judah, the intellect of Greece, the jurisprudence and 
 military prowess of Rome, and the civil and ecclesiastical 
 institutions of medieval Christendom, have il] helped to 
 make of us what we are : till in the European of the nine- 
 teenth century it becomes a curious question how much 
 pertains to the man, and how much to that civilisation, of 
 which he is in part the author and in part the offspring ? 
 In vain we strive to detach European man from elements 
 foreign to him, that we may look on him as he is or was by 
 nature ; for he only exists for us as the product of all those 
 multifarious elements which have accumulated along the 
 track of countless generations. The very serf of the Russian 
 steppes cannot grow freely, as his nomad brother of Asia 
 does ; but must don the unfamiliar fashions of the Frank, 
 as strange to him as the armour of Saul up*^*^ the youthful 
 Ephrathite. 
 
 Is, then, oiviiisation natural to man ; or is it only a habit 
 or condition artificially superinduced, and as foreign to his 
 nature as the bit and bridle to the horse, or the truck-cart 
 to the wild ass of the desert ? Such questions involve the 
 whole ethnological problem reopened by Lamarck, Agassiz, 
 Darwin, Huxley, and others. Whence is man? What are 
 his antecedents ? What — within the compass with which 
 alone science deals, — are his future destinies ? Does civili- 
 sation move only through limited cycles, repeating in new 
 centuries the work of the old ; attaining, under some vary- 
 ing phase, to the same maximum of our imperfect humanity, 
 
8 
 
 DOMESTIC A TION. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 and then, like the wandering comet, returning from the 
 splendour of its perihelion back to night % 
 
 Perhaps a question preliminary even to this is : What is 
 civilisation ? He who has seen the Euromerican and the 
 Indian side by side can be at no loss as to the difference 
 between civilised and uncivilised man. But is he therefore 
 at liberty to conclude that the element which so markedly 
 distinguishes the AVhite- from the Red- man of the . New 
 World is an attribute peculiar to the former, rather than 
 the development of innate powers common to both, and in 
 the possession of which man differs from all other animals? 
 Domestication is, for the lower animals, the subjection of 
 them to artificial conditions foreign to their nature, which 
 they could not originate for themselves, and which they 
 neither mature nor perpetuate : but, on the contrary, hasten 
 to throw off so soon as left to their own uncontrolled action. 
 Civilisation is for man development. It is self-originated; 
 it matures all the faculties natural to him, and is progressive 
 and seemingly ineradicable. Of both postulates the social 
 life alike of the forest and of the clearings of the New 
 World seems to offer proofs ; and to other questions involved 
 in an inquiry into the origin of civilisation and man's rela- 
 tions to it, answers may also be recovered from the same 
 source. There the latest developments of human progress 
 are abruptly brought face to face with the most unpro- 
 gressive phases of savage nature ; and many old problems 
 are being sol \ d anew under novel conditions. The race 
 to which this is chiefly due had been isolated during cen- 
 turies of preparatory training, and illustrates in some of 
 the sources of its progress the impediments tc the civilisa- 
 tion of savage races brought in contact with others at so 
 dissimilar a stage. The very elements for Britain's great- 
 ness i<eem to lie in her slow maturity ; in her collision with 
 successive races only a little in advance of herself ; in hel* 
 ' transition through all the stages from infancy to vigorous 
 manhood. But that done, the Old Englander becomes the 
 
 m. 
 
 I 
 
^m 
 
 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 New Englander ; starts from his matured vantage ground 
 on a fresh career, and displaces the American Red- man by 
 the American White-man, the free product of the great past 
 and the great present. 
 
 It was with a strange and fascinating pleasure, that, after 
 having striven to resuscitate the races of Britain's prehistoric 
 ages, by means of their buried arts,^ I found mysolf face to 
 face with the aborigines of the New World. Much that had 
 become familiar to me in fancy, as pertaining to a long 
 obliterated past, was here the living present ; while around 
 me, in every stage of transition, lay the phases of savage 
 and civilised life : the nature of the forest, the art of the 
 city ; the God-made country, the man-made town : each in 
 the very process of change, extinction, and re-creation. 
 Here, then, was a new field for the study of civilisation and 
 all that it involves. The wild beast is in its native state, 
 and hastens, when relieved from artificial constraints, to 
 return to the forest wilds as to its natural condition. The 
 forest-man — is he too in his natural condition ? for Europe's 
 sons have, for upwards of three centuries, been levelling 
 his forests, and planting their civilisation on the clearings, 
 yet he accepts not their civilisation as a higher goal for him. 
 He, at least, thinks that the white man and the red are of 
 diverse natures ; that the city and the cultivated field are 
 for the one, but the wild forest and the free chase for the 
 other. He does not envy the white man, he only wonders 
 at him as a being of a different nature. 
 
 Broken- Arm, the Chief of the Crccs,recei' iLgthe traveller 
 Paul Kane and his party into his lodge, at their encamp- 
 ment in the valley of the Saskatchewan, told him the 
 following tradition of the tribe. One of the Crees became a 
 Christian. He was a very good man, and did what was 
 right ; and when he died he was taken up to the whi*^'". 
 man's heaven, where everything was very beautiful. Ali 
 vrore happy amongst their friends and relatives who had 
 
 ^ Vide Prehistoric Annals qf Scotland. 
 
)0 
 
 ABORIGINES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 gone before them ; but the Indian could not share their joy, 
 for everything was strange to him. He met none of the 
 spirits of his ancestors to welcome him : no hunting nor 
 fishing, nor any of those occupations in which he was wont 
 to delight. Then the Great Manitou called him, and asked 
 him why he was joyless in His beautiful heaven ; and the 
 Indian replied that he sighed for the company of the spirits 
 of his own people. So the Great Manitou told him that he 
 could not seid him to the Indian heaven, as he had, whilst 
 on earth, chosen this one ; but as he had been a very good 
 man, he would send him back to earth again. 
 
 The Indian does not believe in the superiority of the 
 white man. The di^erence between them is only such as 
 he discerns between the social, constructive beaver, and the 
 solitaiy, cunning fox. The Great Spirit implanted in each 
 his peculiar faculties ; why should the one covet the nature 
 of the other ? Her je one element of the unhopeful Indian 
 future. The progress of the white man offers even less 
 incentive to his ambition than the cunning of xhe fox, or 
 the architectural instincts of the beaver. He, at least, does 
 not overlook, in his sylvan philosophy, that feature in the 
 physical history of mankind, which Agassiz complained of 
 having been neglected : viz., the natural relations between 
 different types of man and the animals and plants inhabit- 
 ing the same regions. Yet the Indian of the America li 
 wilds is no more primeval than his forests. Beneath tlie 
 roots of their oldest giants lie memorials of an older native 
 civilisation ; and the American ethnologist and naturalist, 
 while satisfying themselves of the persistency of a common 
 type, and of specific ethnical characteristics prevailing 
 throughout all the widely scattered tribes of the American 
 continent,^ have been studying only the temporary sup- 
 planters of nations strange to us as the extinct life of older 
 geological periods. 
 
 In that old East, to which science still turns when search - 
 
 ^ Morton : Crania, Americana; Nott : Indiyenoiia Hace*, etc. 
 
!•] 
 
 THE TARTAR; THE ARAB, 
 
 tt 
 
 ing for the cradle-land of the human family, vast areas 
 exist, the characteristics of which seem to stamp with un- 
 progressive endurance the inheritors of the soil. Along the 
 shores of the Indian Ocean and the Levant, and stretching 
 from the Persian Gulf into the fertile valleys of the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris, are still found seats of civilisation 
 coexistent with the earliest dawn of man's history. But 
 beyond these lies the elevated table-land of Central Asia, 
 stretching away northward, and pouring its waters into 
 inland seas, or directing their uncivilising courses into the 
 frozen waters of the Arctic circle. Abrupt mountain- chains 
 subdivide this elevated plateau into regions which have 
 been for unrecorded ages the hives of pastoral tribes, 
 unaffected by any intrusion of civilising arts or settled 
 social habits ; until, impelled by unknown causes, they 
 have poured southward over the seats of primitive Asiatic 
 civilisation, or westward into the younger continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 From the wandering hordes of the great Asiatic steppes 
 have come the Huns, the Magyars, and the Turks, as well 
 as a considerable portion of the Bulgarians of modern 
 Europe ; while the sterile peninsula of Arabia has given 
 birth to moral revolutions of the most enduring influence. 
 Yet the capacity for civilisation of the Magyar or the Turk, 
 transferred to new physical conditions, and subjected to 
 higher moral and intellectual influences ; or the wondrous 
 intellectual vigour of the Arab of Bagdad or Cordova : 
 affords no scale by which to gauge the immobility of 
 the Tartar on his native steppe, or the Arab in his 
 dasert wilderness. Without agriculture or any idea of 
 property in land, destitute of the very rudiments of archi-*- 
 tecturc, knowing no written law, or any form of government 
 save the patriarchal expansion to the tribe of the primitive 
 family ties : we can discern no change in the wild 
 nomad, though we trace him back for three thousand 
 years. Migratory offshoots of the hordes of Central 
 
12 
 
 LANGUAGES OF AMERICA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Asia, and of the wanderers of the Arabian desert, have 
 gone forth to prove the capacity for progress of the least 
 progressive races ; but the great body tarries still in 
 che wilderness and on the steppe, to prove what an endur- 
 j.cg capacity man also has to live as one of the wild fauna 
 of the waste. 
 
 The Indians of the New World, whencesoever they de- 
 rived their origin, present to us just such a type of unpro- 
 gressive life as the nomads of the Asiatic steppe. The 
 Ked-Man of the North- West exhibits no change from his 
 precursors of the fifteenth century ; and for aught that 
 appears in him of a capacity for development, the forests of 
 the American continent may have sheltered hunting and 
 warring tribes of Indians, just as they have sheltered and 
 pastured its wild herds of buffaloes, for countless centuries 
 since the continent rose from its ocean bed. That he is no 
 recent intruder is indisputably proved alike by physical and 
 intellectual evidence. On any theory of human origin, the 
 blended gradations of America'^ widely diversified indi- 
 genous races, demand a lengthened period for their develop- 
 ment ; and equally, on any theory of the origin of languages, 
 must time be prolonged to admit of the multiplication of 
 mutually unintelligible dialects and tongues in the New 
 World. It is estimated that there are nearly six hundred 
 languages, and dialects matured into independent tongues, 
 in Europe. The known origin and growth of some of 
 these may supply a standard whereby to gauge the time 
 indicated by such a multi])lication of tongues. But the 
 languages of the American continents have been estimated 
 to exceed twelve hundred and sixty, including agglutinate 
 languages of peculiarly elaborate structure, and inflectional 
 forms of complex development. Of the grammar of the 
 Lenni-Lenap^ Indians, Duponceau remarks : " It exhibits 
 a language entirely the work of the children of nature, 
 unaided by our arts and sciences, and, what is most remark- 
 able, ignorant of the art of writing. Its forms are rich, 
 
WANDERINGS OF THE NATIONS. 
 
 13 
 
 regular, and methodical, closely following the analogy of 
 the ideas which they are intended to express ; compounded, 
 but not confused ; occasionally elliptical in their mode of 
 expression, but not more so than the languages of Europe, 
 and much less so than those of a large group of nations on 
 the eastern coast of Asia. The terminations of their verbs, 
 expressive of number, person, time, and other modifications 
 of action and passion, while they are richer in their exten- 
 sion than those of the Latin and Greek, which we call 
 emphatically the learned languages, appear to have been 
 formed on a similar but enlarged model, without other aid 
 than that which was afforded by nature operating upon the 
 intellectual faculties of man."^ At the same time it is no 
 less important to note the limited range of vocabulary in 
 many of the ^xxnerican languages. Those characteristics, 
 taken along with their peculiar holophrastic power of inflect- 
 ing complex word sentences, and expressing by their means 
 delicate shades of meaning, exhibit the phenomena of 
 human speech in some of their most remarkable phases. 
 But the range of the vocabularies furnishes a true gauge 
 of the intellectual development of the Indian : incapable 
 of abstract idealism, realising few generic relations, and 
 multiplying words by comparisons and descriptive com- 
 pounds. 
 
 To whatever cause we attribute such phenomena, much 
 is gained by being able to study them apart from the com- 
 plex derivative elements which trammel the study of 
 European philology. Assuming for our present argument 
 the unity of the human race, not in the ambiguous sense of 
 a common typical structure, but literally, as descendants of 
 one stock : in the primitive scattering of infant nations, the 
 Mongol and the American v/ent eastward, while the Indo- 
 European begaa his still uncompleted wanderings towards 
 the for west. The Mongol and the Indo-European have 
 repeatedly met and mingled. They now share, unequally, 
 
 * American Philosophical Tratuactiona, N. S. vol. iii. p. 248. 
 
14 
 
 FOSSIL MAN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the Indian peninsula and the continent of Europe. But 
 the American and the Indo-European only met after an 
 interval measurable by thousands of years, coming from 
 opposite directions, and having made the circuit of the globe. 
 The Ked-Man, it thus appears, is among the ancients of 
 the earth. How old he may be it is impossible to deter- 
 mine; but with one American school of ethnologists, no 
 historical antiquity is sufficient for him. The earliest con- 
 tributions of the New World to the geological traces of man 
 were little less startling, when first brought to light, than 
 any that the European drift has since revealed. The island 
 of Guadaloupe, one of the lesser Antilles, discovered by 
 Columbus in 1493, furnished the first examples of fossil 
 man, and of works of art imbedded in the solid rock. 
 They seemed to the wondering naturalist to upset all pre- 
 conceived ideas of the origin of the human race. But more 
 careful investigation proved the rock to be a concretionary 
 limestone formed from the detritus of corals and shells. 
 The skeletons are probably by no means ancient, even 
 according to the reckoning of American history ; though 
 supplying a curious link in the palseontological treasures 
 both of the British Museum and the Jardin des Plantes. 
 Dr. Lund, the Danish naturalist, has described human 
 bones, bearing, as he believed, marks of geological antiquity, 
 found along with those of many extinct mammals, in the 
 calcareous caves of Brazil. Fossil human remains have also 
 been recovered from a calcareous conglomerate of the coral 
 reefs of Florida, estimated by Professor Agassiz to be not 
 lesb than 10,000 years old ;^ and the Academy of Natural 
 Sciences of Philadelphia treasures the os innominatum of a 
 human skeleton, a fragment of disputed antiquity, dug up 
 near Natchez, on the Mississippi, beneath the bones of the 
 megalonyx.^ 
 , From those, and other discoveries of a like kind, this at 
 
 1 TypeH of Mankind. P. 352. 
 a Proceed. Acad. Nat. Sc Philad. 
 
 Oct. 1846. P. 107. 
 
I.] 
 
 OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 >s 
 
 least becomes apparent, that in the New World, as in the 
 Old, the closing epoch of geology must be turned to for the 
 initial chapters of archaeology and ethnology. According 
 to geological reckoning, much of the American continent 
 has but recently emerged from the ocean. Among the 
 organic remains of Canadian post-tertiary deposits are 
 found the Phoca, Balcena, and other existing marine mammals 
 and fishes along with the Elephas primigenius, the Mas- 
 todon Ohioticus, and other long-extinct species. Looking 
 on the human skeletons of the Guadaloupe limestone in the 
 Museums of London and Paris, — the first examples of the 
 bones of man in a fossil state, — the gradation in form 
 between him ani other animals presents no very important 
 contrast to the uninstructed eye. Modern though those 
 rock-imbedded skeletons are, they accord with older traces 
 of human remains mingling with those of extinct mammals, 
 to which more recent speculations have given so novel an 
 interest in relation to the question of the antiquity of man. 
 The origin and duration of the American type still remain 
 in obscurity. Man entered on the occupation of the New 
 World in centuries which there, as elsewhere, stretch back- 
 ward as we strive to explore them. His early history is 
 lost, for it is not yet four centuries since its discovery ; and 
 he still survives there, as he then did, a being apart from 
 all that specially distinguishes either the cultivated or the 
 uncultured man of Europe. His continent, too, has become 
 the stage whereon are being tested great problems in social 
 science, in politics, and in ethnology. There the civilised 
 man and the savage have been brought face to face to 
 determine anew how far God " giveth to all life, and breath, 
 and all things ; and hath made of one blood all nations of 
 men to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and hath deter- 
 mined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their 
 habitation." There, too, the Black man and the Red, whose 
 destinies seemed to separate them wide as the world's 
 hemispheres, have been brought together to try whether the 
 
m 
 
 OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD. [chap. 
 
 African is more enduring than the indigenous American on 
 his own soil ; to try for us, also, as could no otherwise be 
 tried, questions of amalgamation and hybridity, of develop- 
 ment and perpetuity of varieties, of a dominant, a savage, 
 and a servile race. In all ways : in its recoverable past, 
 in its comprehensible present, in its conceivable future, the 
 New World invites our study, with the promise of dis- 
 closures replete with interest in their bearing on secrets of 
 the elder world. 
 
II.] 
 
 THE LATEST MIGRATIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 l:VV 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE PRIMEVAL TRANSITION. 
 
 THE LATEST MIGRATIONS— FOUNDING A CAPITAL— BEGINNINGS OP HISTORY— PBE- 
 HI8T0RIC PHASES— NON-METALLUROIC ERAS— OSCILLATIONS OF THE LAND- THE 
 GLACLAL PERIOD— FOSSIL MAMMALIA — THE FLINT-FOLK OP THE DRIFT— ADVENT 
 OF EUROPEAN MAN— THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS — CHROilOLOQY OF THE FRENCH 
 DRIFT— SCOTTISH ALLUVIUM— PRECELTIC RACES — THEIR IMITATIVE ARTS — MAN 
 PRIMEVAL— HIS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION — INSTINCT— ACCUMULATED KNOW- 
 LEDGE — PRIMEVAL BRITAIN — ITS FOSSIL FAUNA — OSSIFEROUS CAVES— BUIXHAM 
 CAVE— SCOTTISH REINDEER— AMERICAN DRIFT — RELICS OP ANCIENT LIFE — 
 EXTINCT FAUNA— MAN AND THE MASTODON— INDIAN TRADITIONS— GIANTS — 
 DRIFT DISCLOSURES— AMERICAN CRANIAL TYPE— ANTIQUITY OP THE AMERICAN 
 MAN— PRIMITIVE ARTS. 
 
 The striking contrasts which the New World presents, in 
 nearly every respect, to the Old, are full of significance in 
 relation to the origin of civilisation, and its influence on the 
 progress of man. Viewed merely as the latest scene of 
 migration of European races on a great scale, America has 
 much to disclose in illustration of primitive history. There 
 we see the land cleared of its virgin forest, the soil prepared 
 for its first tillage, the site of the future city chosen, and 
 the birth of the world's historic capitals epitomised in those 
 of the youngest American commonwealths. Taking our 
 stand on one of the newest of these civic sites, let us trace 
 the brief history of the political and commercial capital of 
 Upper Canada. 
 
 Built along the margin of a bay, enclosed by a peninsular 
 [, spit of land running out from the north shore of Lake 
 Ontario, the city of Toronto rests on a drift formation of 
 sand and clay, only disturbed in its nearly level uniformity 
 by the rain-gullies and ravines which mark the courses of 
 the rivulets that drain its surface. This the original pro- 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
i8 
 
 FOUNDING A CAPITAL, 
 
 [chap. 
 
 jectors of the city mapped off into parallelograms, by streets 
 uniformly intersecting each other at right angles ; and in 
 carrying out their plan, every ravine and undulation is 
 smoothed and levelled, as with the indiscriminating pre- 
 cision of the mower's scythe. The country rises to the 
 north for about twenty miles, by a gradual slope to the 
 water-shed between Ontario and Lake Simcoe, and then 
 descends to the level of the northern lake and the old 
 hunting-grounds of the Hurons. It is a nearly unvary- 
 ing expanse of partially cleared forest : a blank, with its 
 Indian traditions effaced, its colonial traditions uncreated. 
 The cities of the old world have their mythic founders and 
 quaint legends still commemorated in heraldic blazonry. 
 But there is no mystery about the beginnings of Toronto. 
 Upper Canada was erected into a distinct province in 1791, 
 only eight years after France finally renounced all claim on 
 the province of Quebec ; and a few months thereafter 
 General Simcoe, the first governor of the new province, 
 arrived at the old French fort, at the mouth of the Niagara 
 river, and in May 1793 selected the Bay of Toronto as the 
 site of the future capital. The chosen spot presented a 
 dreary aspect of swamp and uncleared pine forest ; but amid 
 these his sagacious eye saw in anticipation the city rise, 
 which already numbers upwards of 60,000 inhabitants ; tmd 
 rejecting the old Indian name, since restored, he gave to his 
 embryo capital that of York. Colonel Bouchette, Surveyor- 
 General of Lower Canada, was selected to lay out the pro- 
 jected city and harbour ; and he thus describes the locality 
 as it then existed : " I still distinctly recollect the ritamed 
 aspect which the country exhibited when first I entered the 
 beautiful basin. Dense and trackless forests lined the 
 margin of the lake, and reflected cheir inverted images in 
 its glassy surface. The wandering savage had constructed 
 his ephemeral habitation beneath their luxuriant foliage, the 
 group then consisting of two families of Mississagas ; and 
 the bay and neighbouring marshes wore the hitherto uniu- 
 
[chap. 
 
 ly streets 
 ; and in 
 lation is 
 ting pre- 
 ss to the 
 pe to the 
 and then 
 the old 
 ' unvary- 
 , with its 
 mereated. 
 aders and 
 blazonry, 
 f Toronto. 
 e in 1791, 
 1 claim on 
 thereafter 
 province, 
 lie Niagara 
 mto as the 
 •esented a 
 but amid 
 city rise, 
 ;ants; t^nd 
 ;ave to his 
 Surveyor- 
 Lt the pro- 
 le locality 
 ritamed 
 Intered the 
 lined the 
 images in 
 instructed 
 age, the 
 tgas ; and 
 ierto unin- 
 
 II.] 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY. 
 
 19 
 
 vaded haunts of immense coveys of wild-fowl ; indeed, they 
 were so abundant as in some measure to annoy us during 
 the night."* 
 
 The vicissitudes attending the progress of the Canadian 
 city have bet \ minutely chronicled by local historians, who 
 record how many dwellings of round logs, squared timber, 
 or more ambitious frame-houses exceeding a single story, 
 were in existence at various dates. The first vessel which 
 belonged to the town, and turned its harbour to account ; 
 the first brick house, the earliest stone one ; and even the 
 first gig of an ambitious citizen, subsequent to 1812, are 
 all duly chronicled. Could we learn with equal truthfulness 
 of the first years of the city built by Romulus on the Palatine 
 Hill, its annals would tell no less homely truths, even now 
 dimlj' hinted at in the legend of the scornful Remus leaping 
 over its infant ramparts. Tiber's hill was once the site only 
 of the solitary berdsman's hut ; and an old citizen has 
 described to me his youthful recollections of Toronto as 
 consisting of a few log-huts in the clearing, and an Indian 
 village of birch-bark wigwams, near the Don, with a mere 
 trail through the woods to the old French fovt, on the lino 
 where now upwards of two miles of costly stores, hotels, and 
 public buildings mark the principal street of the busy city. 
 
 M. Theodore Pavi describes Toronto, in his Souvenirs 
 Atlantiqties, published at Paris in 1833, as still in the woods, 
 a mere advanced post of civilisation on the outskirts of a 
 boundless waste. " To the houses succeed immediately the 
 forests, and how profound must be those immense forests, 
 when we reflect thpt they continue without interruption 
 till they lose themselves in the icy regions of Hudson's 
 Bay near the Arctic Pole." Upwards of forty years have 
 since elapsed, and that for New-World cities is an a3on. 
 Every year has witnessed more rapid strides, alike in the 
 progress of Toronto, and in the clearing and settling of the 
 surrounding country. Railways have opened up new avenues 
 
 ' The BrilUh Dominiotu in Xitrih AmeiHca. Loud. 1832. Vol. i. p, fi9. 
 
T^ 
 
 SO 
 
 PREHISTORIC PHASES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 of trade and commerce, and borne troops of sturdy pioneers 
 into the wilderness behind. So rapid has been the clearing 
 of the forest, and so great the rise in the price of labour, 
 that fuel, brought from the distant coal-fields of Pennsylvania, 
 already undersells the cord-wood hewn in Canadian forests ; 
 and even Newcastle coal warms many a luxurious winter 
 hearth. All is rife with progress. The new past is despised ; 
 the old past is unheeded ; and for antiquity there is neither 
 reverence nor faith. These are beginnings of history ; and 
 are full of significance to those who have wrought out some 
 of the curious problems of an ancient past, amid historic 
 scenes contrasting in all respects with this unhistoric but 
 vigorous youth of the New World. The contrast between 
 the new and the old is here sufliciently striking Yet the 
 
 old also was once new ; had even such begin 'di: 
 
 .3 
 
 this ; 
 
 and was as devoid of history as the rawest clearing of the 
 Far West. 
 
 There are ether aspects also in which a New World, thus 
 entering on its historic life, is calculated to throw light on 
 the origin of civilisation. Though neither its forests nor its 
 aborigines are primeval, they realise for us just such a pri- 
 mitive condition as that in which human history appears to 
 begin. In all the most characteristic aspects of the Indian, 
 as well as in the traces of native American metallurgy, 
 architecture, letters, and science, we find reproduced 
 same phases through which man passed in oldest prehis 
 times; and when, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuric 
 we witness the mineral wealth of the Andes tempting 
 European colonisation beyond the Atlantic, we only see the ex- 
 peditions of new Argonauts; and realise incidents of the first 
 voyage to the Cassittnides ; or the planting of the infant 
 colonies of Gadir, Maosala, and Carthage by Phocian and 
 Punic adventurers of the historic dawn. But the specu- 
 lations of modern science carry us far beyond any dawn of 
 definite history, even when reseaich is directed to the evidence 
 of man's primitive arts, and the origin. ^^ his civilisation. 
 
 <-iU 
 
 \-> 
 
[chap. 
 
 oneers 
 earing 
 abour, 
 Lvania, 
 orests; 
 winter 
 spised ; 
 Qeither 
 J ; and 
 it some 
 historic 
 ric but 
 )etween 
 Yet the 
 3 this ; 
 ; of the 
 
 •Id, tlius 
 \\A\i on 
 nor its 
 h a pri- 
 pears to 
 Indian, 
 ;allurgy, 
 Lced ^bo 
 ihia ii' 
 
 e' 
 
 II.] 
 
 NON-METALLURGIC ERAS. 
 
 31 
 
 The investigation of the underlying chronicles of Europe's 
 most ancient human history has placed beyond question 
 that its historic period was preceded by an unhistoric one 
 of long duration, marked by a slow progression from arts of 
 the rudest kind to others which involved the germs of all 
 later development. From Europe, and the historic lands 
 of Asia and Africa, we derive our ideas of man ; and of the 
 youngest of these continents, on which he has thus advanced 
 from savage artlessness to the highest arts of civilisation, 
 we have history, written or traditional, for at least two 
 thousand years. But in the year 1492 a New World was 
 discovered, peopled with its own millions, for the most part 
 in no degree advanced beyond that primeval starting-point 
 which lies far behind Europe's oldest traditions. To have 
 found there beings strange as the inhabitants of Swift's 
 Houyhnhnm's Land, or the monsters conjured up in the 
 philosophic day-dreams of Sir Humphry Davy for the 
 peopling of other planets,^ would have seemed less wonder- 
 ful to the men of that fifteenth century than what they did 
 find : man in a state of savage infancy, with arts altogether 
 rudimentary ; language without letters, tradition without 
 history, everything as it were but in its beginning, and yet 
 himself looking back into a past even more vast and vague 
 than their own. The significance of this state of things is 
 worth inquiring into, if it be for nothing else than the light 
 which the analogies of such a living present may throw on 
 the infancy of Europe, and beyond that, on the primal 
 infancy of the human race. 
 
 Recent discoveries of primitive art in the diluvial forma- 
 tions both of France and England have tended to add a 
 fresh interest to the investigation of that " primeval stone- 
 period" which underlies the most ancient memorials of 
 Europe's civilisation. The oldest of all written chronicles 
 assigns a period of some duration in the history of the 
 human race, during which man tilled the ground, pursued 
 
 * CoMoUiiiont \n Travfl, or the Last Days qfa Philosopher, 
 
22 
 
 OSCILLATIONS OF THE LAND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I 
 
 the chase, and made garments of its spoils, without any 
 knowledge of the working in metals, on which the simplest 
 of all known arts depend. Through such a primitive stage 
 it had already appeared to me probable that all civilised 
 nations had passed,* before disclosures of a still older flint- 
 period in the chroniclings of the drift added new signifi- 
 cance to the term primeval, in its application to the non- 
 metallurgic era of Europe's arts. 
 
 The incredulity and even contempt with which the appli- 
 cation of a system of archaeological periods to the antiquities 
 of Britain was received, in recent years, by a certain class 
 of critics, was inevitable, from the exclusive attention pre- 
 viously devoted to Roman and medieval remains. But the 
 attention of the antiquary, as well as the geologist, is now 
 being directed to conclusions forced on both by the traces 
 of man in the stratified gravel of post-pleiocene formations. 
 The circumstances attending their repeated discovery place 
 their remote antiquity beyond question. The difficulty 
 indeed is to bring the phenomena illustrated by palaeolithic 
 relics of the quaternary period into any conceivable harmony 
 with the limits of chronology as hitherto applied to man. 
 The pre-Celtic architects of the British long-barrow, and the 
 allophylise of the European stone age, are but men of 
 yesterday in comparison with the Flint-Folk of the 
 Drift. They belong to a lost Atlantis, — another conti- 
 nent, now in part at least buried beneath the ocean ; and 
 compared with which the Old World of history is as new 
 as that found for it by Columbus. 
 
 The disclosures of geology have familiarised us with the 
 conviction that the " stable land," the " perpetual hills," 
 and the " everlasting mountains " are but figures of speech. 
 But the idea forces itself on reluctant minds that man 
 himself has witnessed the disappearance of Alpine chains 
 and the submergence of continents. The Pacific archi- 
 pelagos are but the mountain-crests of a southern continent, 
 
 ^ PreAiston'c Annal4 qf Scotland, vol. i. p. 41. 
 
 ill 
 
'"if^f 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ut any 
 implest 
 '^e stage 
 ivilised 
 er flint- 
 signifi- 
 ,he non- 
 
 le appli- 
 tiquities 
 in class 
 :ion pre- 
 But the 
 :, is now 
 [le traces 
 •mations. 
 3ry place 
 lifficulty 
 Iseolithic 
 larmony 
 ;o man. 
 and the 
 men of 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ir conti- 
 in ; and 
 as new 
 
 f "•] 
 
 THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 
 
 23 
 
 I 
 
 with the 
 
 ,1 hills," 
 
 speech. 
 
 Hiat man 
 
 le chains 
 
 archi- 
 
 )ntinent, 
 
 4 
 
 
 which in earlier ages may have facilitated the wanderings 
 of the nations. The startling discoveries in the French and 
 English drift are results of oscillations of the northern 
 hemisphere, which, in times nearer to historic centuries, 
 depressed the bed of the Baltic in the era of the Danish 
 kjokkenmoddingr, and made dry land of the upper estuaries 
 of the Forth and Clyde. It is doubtful, indeed, if the 
 shallowing of Danish and Scottish seas by the rise of their 
 ocean-beds is altogether a work of prehistoric times. The 
 rise still going on in parts of the Swedish coast is a pheno- 
 menon long familiar to geologists ; and the upheaval of the 
 Scottish region, embracing the valleys of the Forth and 
 Clyde, it now appears probable, has been protracted into 
 historic times, and has even affected the relative levels of 
 sea and land since the building of the Roman wall. 
 
 The changes thus witnessed on a comparatively small 
 scale, on familiar areas, help us in some degree to estimate 
 the vast physical revolutions that have taken place through- 
 out the northern hemisphere within that recent geological 
 period which succeeded the formation of the pleiocene strata. 
 One of the most remarkable phenomena now recognised as 
 affecting the conditions of life in recent geological epochs 
 is the prolonged existence, throughout the whole northern 
 hemisphere, of a temperature resembling that of the Arctic 
 regions at the present time. After a period more nearly 
 assimilating in climatic character to the tropics, though 
 otherwise under varying conditions, the temperature of the 
 whole northern hemisphere gradually diminished towards 
 the end of the tertiary epoch, until the highlands of Scotland 
 and Wales — then at a much higher elevation, — resembled 
 Greenland at the present time, and an Arctic temperature 
 extended southward to the Pyrenees and the Alps. Glaciers 
 formed under the influence of perpetual frost and snow 
 descended into the valleys and plains over the greater portion 
 of Central Europe and Northern Asia, and an Arctic winter 
 reigned throughout. 
 
24 
 
 CONDITIONS OF CLIMATE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 1 
 
 ,i 
 
 This condition of things, pertaining to what is known as 
 the glacial period, was unquestionably of long duration. 
 But after some partial variations of temperature, and a 
 consequent advance and retrocession of the glacial influences 
 along what was then the border lines of a north temperate 
 zone, the first period of extreme cold drew to a close. 
 Between the Alps and the mountain ranges of Scotland and 
 Wales, the winter resembled that which even now prevails 
 on the North American continent, in latitudes in which the 
 moose, the wapiti, and the grizzly bear, freely range over 
 the same areas where during a brief summer of intense heat 
 enormous herds of buflalo annually migrate from the south. 
 A similar alternation of seasons within the European glacial 
 period can alone account for the presence, alongside of an 
 Arctic fauna, of animals such as the hippopotamus and the 
 hyaena, known only throughout the historical period as 
 natives of the tropics. The range of temperature of Cana- 
 dian seasons admits of the Arctic skua-gull, the snow-goose, 
 the Lapland bunting, and the like Arctic visitors, meeting 
 the king-bird, the humming-bird, and other wanderers from 
 the gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Such c aditions of climate may account for the recovery 
 of the remains of the reindeer and the hippopotamus in the 
 same drift and cave-deposits of Europe's glacial period. 
 The woolly mammoth and rhinoceros, the musk ox, reindeer, 
 and other Arctic fauna, may be presumed to have annually 
 retreated from the summer heats, and given place to those 
 animals, the living representatives of which are now found 
 only in tropical Africa. A period of depression followed, 
 during which, throughout an extensive area, all but the 
 highest levels was submerged beneath an Arctic ocean, and 
 the drift and boulders of the highlands of Norway and 
 Scotland were dispersed by means of icebergs over the low 
 levels of what was then an archipelago, in which only the 
 higher peaks of Britain rose out of the sea. Far to the south 
 of the Thames and the Seine, the drift of this Arctic ocean 
 
[chap. 
 
 lown as 
 uration. 
 , and a 
 .fluences 
 mperate 
 a close. 
 Land and 
 prevails 
 ^hich the 
 cig-e over 
 5nse heat 
 be south, 
 m glacial 
 de of an 
 3 and the 
 )eriod as 
 of Cana- 
 ow-goose, 
 meeting 
 rers from 
 
 recovery 
 us in the 
 1 period, 
 reindeer, 
 annually 
 to those 
 )W found 
 'oUowed, 
 but the 
 lean, and 
 ay and 
 the low 
 |only the 
 he south 
 tic ocean 
 
 "•] 
 
 FOSSIL MAMMALIA 
 
 25 
 
 M. 
 
 I 
 
 k 
 
 n 
 
 was then accumulating the e-ddence which now reveals to us 
 the fauna and the arts of quaternary Europe ; just as the 
 overlying boulders of the American drift far south in the 
 Ohio valleys show their derivation from the Laurentian 
 mountains of Canada. With the elevation of the old ocean- 
 bed there appears to have been a renewal of an Arctic tem- 
 perature indicated by the traces of local glaciers in the 
 mountains of Scotland, Cumberland, and Wales ; and 
 so the glacial period drew to a close. A gradual rise of 
 temperature carried the lines of ice and perpetual snow 
 further and further northward, excepting in regions of 
 great elevation, as in the Swiss Alps. This was neces- 
 sarily accompanied with the melting of the glaciers ac- 
 cumulated in the mountain valleys throughout the pro- 
 tracted period of cold. The broken rocks and soil of the 
 highlands were swept into the valleys by torrents of melted 
 ice and snow; the lower valleys were hollowed out and 
 reformed under this novel agency ; and the landscape 
 assumed its latest contour of valley, estuary, and river- 
 beds. 
 
 This is what the elder geologists, including Dean Buck- 
 land, accepted for a time as the evidence of the Mosaic 
 deluge. It is now uni-'^ersally recognised as the product 
 of no sudden cataclysm, but the result of operations carried 
 on continuously throughout periods of vast duration, during 
 which the memorials of animal and vegetable life of the 
 pleiocene and pleistocene epochs were slowly imbedded in 
 the accumulated debris of this diluvian reconstruction. The 
 characteristics of the fossil mammals of the post-glacial 
 period differ in many respects so widely from all that we 
 are accustomed to associate with the presence of man, that 
 they help to suggest even an exaggerated idea of antiquity. 
 Nevertheless, there is no break of continuity. Animals still 
 living have their fossil representatives alongside of the 
 pleiocene mastodon, cave-lion, and bear: if indeed the latter 
 be not itself the ursus ferox^ or grizzly bear of North 
 
26 
 
 THE FLINT-FOLK OF THE DRIFT. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 America, the claws of which are still worn as the proudest 
 trophy of the Red Indian hunter. >u ; v . 
 
 Of twenty-one species of post-glacial mammals identified 
 in the deposits of Brixham Cavern, only four are regarded 
 as extinct species, and these include the ursus spelwus and 
 hycena spelcea. But their habitats have been widely changed 
 in the climatic and geographical revolutions which have 
 intervened. Some have to be sought for within the Arctic 
 circle; others in low latitudes, and on continents lying 
 wholly outside of that world which was alone known to 
 Aristotle and Pliny. Every thing indicates a revolution 
 slowlj' wrought through unnumbered ages, during which 
 the ancient fauna was being supplanted by novel species, 
 including those which belong to the historical period of 
 temperate Europe. So far as appearis from present evidence, 
 man himself has to be included among the new additions to 
 the European fauna. To this post glacial period must, at 
 any rate, be assigned the advent of the Flint-Folk of the 
 Drift : a race of hunters and fishers not greatly differing in 
 their rude arts from the more immediate precursors of the 
 Historic races in Europe's Stone Age ; but who were con- 
 temporaneous with the Siberian mammoth and other extinct 
 elephants, the woolly rhinoceros, the musk ox, and the 
 reindeer of France ; and with numerous extinct carnivora 
 of proportions corresponding to the gigantic herbivora on 
 which they preyed. 
 
 The regions in which remains of the Flint-Folk have 
 hitherto chiefly occurred embrace the valleys of Northern 
 France and Southern England, where now the vine and the 
 hop clothe the sunny slopes with their luxuriance. But as 
 fresh evidence accumulates, corresponding indications are 
 found to extend to the shores and islands of the Mediter- 
 ranean. Traces of Europe's neolithic artificers have been 
 found in the caves of Gibraltar ; and among a singularly 
 interesting accumulation of flint-tlakes, polished stone axes, 
 rude pottery, etc., lying beside the skeletons of their 
 
 uiUi 
 
 M i Mirt W i r iMh ' J JiMU ii H . ri . ' U tr •ni ifc y j ii ii.i 
 
■»r 
 
 . [chap. 
 proudest 
 
 dentified 
 regarded 
 IcBus and 
 changed 
 ich have 
 be Arctic 
 its lying 
 :nown to 
 evolution 
 ig which 
 I species, 
 Deriod of 
 evidence, 
 litions to 
 must, at 
 k of the 
 fering in 
 L's of the 
 ''ere con- 
 r extinct 
 and the 
 arnivora 
 Lvora on 
 
 )lk have 
 orthern 
 and the 
 But as 
 ions are 
 Iklediter- 
 ve been 
 gularly 
 tie axes, 
 )f their 
 
 IL] 
 
 ADVENT OF EUROPEAN MAN. 
 
 %1 
 
 ■■'•¥ 
 
 owners, in the same caves of Andalusia from one of which a 
 golden tiara of primitive workmanship has been recovered.* 
 Among remoter traces in the Maccagnone, Sicilian cave. 
 Dr. Falconer could discover nothing suggestive of a different 
 period for the rude flint implements and the numerous 
 bones of the hippopotamus, mammoth, cave-lion, and other 
 fossil mammals with which they were conjoined ; while far 
 eastward, near Beyrout, the Rev. H. B. Tristram reports the 
 occurrence, in the stalagmitic flooring of a limestone cave, 
 of bones and teeth assigned to a fossil ox, the red-deer, and 
 the reindeer, alongside of the flint knives or flakes which 
 the prehistoric cave-men of Lebanon had used when feast- 
 ing on such prey.^ But though such traces occur on ancient 
 historic sites, we search in vain for any connecting link 
 between the oldest historic races and those belonging to an 
 era which one distinguished geologist has designated as 
 "The Second Elephantine Period ;"' when, according to his 
 reconstruction of the physical geography of the region, the 
 Thames was a tributary of the Rhine ; the English Channel 
 was not yet in being, and Britain existed only is part of a 
 continent which stretched away uninterruptedly northward 
 towards the Arctic circle. 
 
 It thus appears that the advent of man in Northern 
 Europe is assignable to a period when the mammoth and the 
 tichorine rhinoceros still roamed its forests, and the great 
 cave-tiger and other extinct carnivora haunted its caverns ; 
 when the gigantic Irish elk, the reindeer, the musk-ox, 
 and the wild horse were objects of the chase ; and the hippo- 
 potamus major was a summer visitor to the Seine and the 
 Thames. When first employing the term prehistoric which 
 has since obtained such universal acceptance, I remarked, 
 in reference to Scottish aboriginal traces : " There is one 
 certain point in this inquiry into primitive arts which the 
 
 * ArUiguedades Prehiatoricas de Andaluaia, Madrid, 1868. 
 
 ' The Land oflarael: a Journal of Travsla in Pale«tir.% 1 806, p. 11. 
 
 ' J. Trimmer: Jour. Oeol. Soc, vo). ix. 
 
98 
 
 THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS. \ 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Britisli antiquary possesses over all others, and from whence 
 he can start without fear of error. From our insular posi- 
 tion it is unquestionable that the first colonist of the British 
 Isles must have been able to construct some kind of boat, 
 and have possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to 
 steer his course through the open sea."^ It then seemed a 
 postulate on which the most cautious adventurer into the 
 great darkness which lies behind us might confidently take 
 his stand. But the point was no certain one after all. The 
 fauna of the later Elephantine period still roamed over a 
 wide continent unbroken by the English Channel or the 
 Irish Sea ; and the valley of the Khine stretching northward 
 through the still unsubmerged plain of the German Ocean, 
 received as tributaries the Thames and the Humber, per- 
 haps also the Tweed and the Forth. Measured therefore 
 by the most moderate estimate of geological chronology, the 
 historical period is, in relation to the interval since the first 
 appearance of man, somewhat in a ratio with the superficial 
 soil and vegetable mouldy as compared with the whole 
 deposits of the stratified drift : in other words, it is so 
 insignificant as, in a geological point of view, to bo scarcely 
 worth taking into account. 
 
 Whatever be the consequences involved in sucjh compre- 
 hensive inductions, proofs appear to accumulate, with every 
 renewed search, of the wide diff'usion throughout the bone- 
 bearing drift of the post-glacial period, of symmetrically- 
 formed flints, bearing indubitable traces of intelligence and 
 primitive mechanical skill. 
 
 It is the old argument of Paley, reproduced in a form 
 undreamt of in his philosophy. "If," he might have said, 
 " in digging into a bank of gravel we find a flint, we do not 
 pause to ask whence it came ; but if our spade strike on a 
 
 watch?" In the age of the Flint Folk mechanical 
 
 ingenuity expended itself for other purposes than the manu- 
 facture of time-measurers ; but if the artificial origin of the 
 
 ^ Prehistaric Annals of Scotland, 1861, Isb Ed. p, 29. 
 
 M.- 
 
[chap. 
 
 oa whence 
 ular posi- 
 le British 
 i of boat, 
 gation to 
 seemed a 
 r into the 
 3ntly take 
 
 all. The 
 ed over a 
 lel or the 
 aorthward 
 an Ocean, 
 oaber, per- 
 
 therefore 
 lology, the 
 le the first 
 superficial 
 the whole 
 ?, it is so 
 )e scarcely 
 
 h compre- 
 viih every 
 the bone- 
 letrically- 
 ^ence and 
 
 n a form 
 lave said, 
 we do not 
 rike on a 
 echanical 
 he manu- 
 nn of the 
 
 ', 
 
 't 
 
 II.] 
 
 THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 29 
 
 implements of the drift, and their consequent indications of 
 the presence of man, be acknowledged, our greatest difficulty 
 is the remoteness of the period which they seem to indicate. 
 Worked flints and other assumed human industrial remains 
 have now been recovered from caverns, in various countries 
 of Europe, as in the caves of Engis and Chokier, near Li^ge ; 
 at Mont Sal^ve, Geneva ; in the south of France, in Belgium, 
 and in England : in every case so mingled with remains of 
 the mammoth, rhinoceros, hyjena, and other extinct mam- 
 mals, as to lead to the conviction of their contemporaneous 
 deposition. Recent carefully conducted explorations in the 
 Devonshire caves have resulted in seemingly indisputable 
 proof that English flint-implements of the Amiens type are 
 coeval with the extinct fauna ; and that consequently the 
 presence of their manufacturers must be assigned to periods 
 prior to the successive inundations and depositions by which 
 Brixham cave was gradually filled with layers of water- worn 
 gravel, silt, or cave-earth, bone breccia, and solid floorings 
 of carbonate of lime. 
 
 The rudeness of many of the worked flints has suggested 
 the idea of their accidental origin ; but the most diligent 
 search in the heaps of chalk-flints broken for the roads, in 
 France or England, or crushed in situ by subterranean 
 movements, as in the Isle of Wight, has failed to recover a 
 single specimen resembling even the rudest implements of 
 the drift ; whereas, in the ancient flint pits of the Shawnces, 
 and probably of the Mound-Builders of Ohio, — to which I 
 shall again refer, — I have collected fractured flints of pre- 
 cisely the same types as those familiar to us among the 
 rudest drift implements. They diff*er for the most part in 
 size, and also in type, from those found in early British or 
 Danish grave-mounds ; but artificial origin and inventive 
 design are as obvious in the one as in the other. 
 
 That forgery of drift implements has been practised 
 latterly, especially by the French workmen, is indisputable, 
 but this need not affect the question. The facts connected 
 
m 
 
 THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 [chAP. 
 
 with their discovery had been on record for nearly a century 
 and a half before their significance was perceived ; and 
 s^ scimens lay unheeded in the British Museum and in the 
 collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London, with 
 their human workmanship undisputed, so long as their 
 origin was ascribed to Celtic art.* In reality the explorers 
 of the drift have been perplexed by the very abundance of 
 the traces of art which it discloses. Dr. RigoUot states 
 that in the pits of St. Acheul alone, between August and 
 December 1854, upwards of four hundred specimens were 
 obtained. The lowest estimate of the number recovered in 
 the valley of the Somme is 3000 ; but this is exclusive of 
 the more dubious flint-flakes, styled knives, estimated by 
 Sir Charles Lyell at many thousands more.^ In England 
 flint implements of the same peculiar type have already 
 rewarded research in many localities ; so that Mr. Evans 
 justly remarks: "The number found " almost beyond 
 belief."^ Some reasons tending to acco. x"or their accu- 
 mulation in such localities are discussed in the following 
 chapter, in the light of analogous discoveries in the New 
 World. But while it is no longer possible to question their 
 artificial origin, and the consequent evidence of the 
 presence of man in those localities where they abound, the 
 haunts of those primeval hunters and fishers were the river- 
 valleys of an elder world ; and any attempt at estimating 
 the time required for changes of climate, extinction of fauna, 
 the succession of races implied in the phases of palaeolithic 
 and neolithic arts, and the gradual introduction and develop- 
 ment of metallurgy, involves so many unknown quantities, 
 that at present it must suffice to recognise as no longer dis- 
 putable that the whole historic period of Northern Europe 
 is insignificant when compared with the time requisite to 
 account for all the phenomena in question. The relative 
 chronology of the French drift is : \sty superficially, tombs 
 
 ^ Arch(Bolo(jia, vol. xiii. p. 206 ; vol. xxxviii. p. 301. 
 
 * Antiquity of Man, 4th Ed. p. 190. ^ Archveologia, vol. xxxviii. p. 296. 
 
[chap. 
 
 a century 
 
 ^red ; and 
 
 md in the 
 
 ion, with 
 
 as their 
 
 explorers 
 
 ndance of 
 
 [lot states 
 
 igust and 
 
 nens were 
 
 covered in 
 
 [elusive of 
 
 mated by 
 
 England 
 
 '^e already 
 
 Mr. Evans 
 
 5t beyond 
 
 leir accu- 
 
 foUowing 
 
 the New 
 
 ition their 
 
 of the 
 
 lound, the 
 
 he river- 
 
 stimating 
 
 of fauna, 
 
 Eilseolithic 
 
 develop- 
 
 uantities, 
 
 >nger dis- 
 
 Europe 
 
 :juisite to 
 
 relative 
 
 y, tombs 
 
 ii. p. 296. 
 
 II.] 
 
 SCOTTISH ALLUVIUM. 
 
 3« 
 
 and other remains of the Koman period, scarcely perceptibly 
 affected in their geological relations by nearly the whole 
 interval of the Christian era ; 2cZ, in the alluvium, ssemingly 
 imbedded by natural accumulation, at an average depth of 
 15 feet, remains of a European stone-period, corresponding 
 to those of the recently discovered pfahlbauten, or lacustrine 
 villages of the Swiss Lakes ; and, 3o?, the tool-bearing gravel, 
 imbedding works of the Flint-Folk, wrought seemingly 
 when the rivers were but beginning the work of excavating 
 the valleys which give their present contour to the land- 
 scapes of France and England. 
 
 With such indications of the remoteness of the era of the 
 Drift-Folk it scarcely calls for special notice, that their tools 
 correspond to some of those found in cave-deposits, as in 
 Kent's Hole, Devonshire ; but that they are readily distin- 
 guishable from the sn Her implements and weapons of the 
 same material wrought by the primitive Barrow-Builders 
 of Europe, or by modern savage tribes still ignorant of 
 metallurgy. From whatever point we attempt to view the 
 facts thus presented to our consideration, it becomes 
 equally obvious that we are dealing with the traces of a 
 period irreconcilable with any received system of historic 
 chronology; but within which, nevertheless, we are compelled 
 to recognise many indications of the presence of man. 
 
 By evidence of a like character, the intermediate but still 
 remote periods of prehistoric centuries are peopled with 
 successive races of men. Proofs of oscillation, upheaval, 
 and derangement of the course of ancient rivers, had 
 furnished indications of the enormous lapse of time embraced 
 within the British stone-period before the discoveries of 
 Abbeville and Amiens were heard of.^ In the year 1819 
 there was disclosed in the alluvium of the carse-land, where 
 the river Forth winds its circuitous course through ancient 
 historic scenes, the skeleton of a gigantic whale, with a 
 perforated lance or harpoon of deer's horn beside it. They 
 
 ^Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 1st Ed. p. 33. 
 
J2 
 
 PRE CELTIC RACES. 
 
 
 I 
 
 [chap. a 
 
 lay together near the base of Dunmyat, one of the Ochil 
 Hills, twenty feet above the highest tide of the neighbouring 
 estuary. Over this an accumulation of five feet of allu"vial 
 soil was covereu with a thin bed of moss. The locality 
 was examined by scientific observers peculiarly competent 
 to the task ; and at the same time sufficient traces of the 
 old Roman causeway were observed, loading to one of the 
 fords of the Forth, to prove that no important change had 
 taken place on the bed of the river, or the general features 
 of the strath, during the era of authentic history.^ Kor was 
 this example a solitary one. Remains of gigantic Balsenoe 
 have been repeatedly found ; and one skeleton discovered 
 in 1824, seven miles further inland, was deposited in 
 the Museum of Edinburgh University, along with the 
 primitive harpoon of deer's horn found beside it, which in 
 this instance retained some portion of the wooden shaft by 
 which it had been wielded. Among antique spoils recovered 
 at various depths in the same carsc-land, the collection of 
 the Scottish Antiquaries includes a primitive quern, or 
 hand-mill, fashioned from the section of an oak, — such as is 
 still in use by the Indians of America for pounding their 
 grain, — and a wooden wheel of ingenious construction, 
 found with several flint arrow-heads alongside of it. 
 
 With such well-authenticated and altogether indisputable 
 evidence already in our possession, the additions made to 
 our grounds for belief in the antiquity of the prehistoric 
 dawn of Brit^dn or Europe do not materially affect the 
 conclusions thereby involved, though they add to the appar- 
 ent duration of the human era. Whatever difficulties may 
 seem to arise from the discoveries at Abbeville and Amiens, 
 or the older ones at Gray's Inn Lane, Hoxne, and elsewhere, 
 in relation to the age of man, the chronology which 
 suffices to embrace the ancient Caledonian whaler within 
 the period of human history will equally adapt itself to 
 " more recent disclosures. And lying, as the Scottish relics 
 
 ' Edin. Phil. Jour., i. 395. 
 
II.] 
 
 THEIR IMITATIVE ARTS. 
 
 33 
 
 ;lie Ochil 
 hbouring 
 I alluvial 
 } locality 
 ompetent 
 ;es of the 
 ne of the 
 ange had 
 1 features 
 Kor was 
 ; Balsense 
 .iscovered 
 osited in 
 with the 
 which in 
 1 shaft by- 
 recovered 
 lection of 
 quern, or 
 luch as is 
 ing their 
 [struction, 
 It. 
 
 lisputable 
 made to 
 Irehistoric 
 ifFect the 
 le appar- 
 |lties may 
 Amiens, 
 [Isewhere, 
 [y which 
 nr within 
 itself to 
 lish relics 
 
 ■f 
 
 did, almost beneath the paving of the Roman causeway, 
 they suffice to show that discoveries relative to the British 
 Celt of Julius Caesar's time, or to the Romanised Briton of 
 Claudius or Nero, which have hitherto seemed to the 
 antiquary to illuminate the primeval dawn, bear somewhat 
 less relation to the period to which the Dunmyat and 
 Blair-Drummond Moss harpoons belong, than the American 
 aborigines of the fifteenth century do to primeval genera- 
 tions of the New World. The very question raised anew by 
 such disclosures as the British drift, ossiferous caves, grave- 
 mounds, and chance deposits reveal, is whether the ancient 
 Celt, on whom Roman and Saxon intruded, was not himself 
 a very recent intruder on older allophylian occupants V- If 
 he was not, we are left to imagine for his race an antiquity 
 and a history, compared with which the dreams of 
 Merlin and the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth are credible 
 things. ^^ ''■■■•■■•■■' • --''■'--' ' ^-- 
 
 With the advent of man antedated in geological eras, the 
 Roman period becomes, in truth, a part of very modern 
 history ; and the vast ages computed to have intei^ened 
 between the two periods baffle the fancy in its efforts to 
 comprehend the links by which they are connected. But 
 crude as are the ai'ts of tliat primeval age, it will be seen that 
 they compare favourably with those of uncultured man at 
 any later period. Recent explorations, and espccitdly those 
 of the Dordogne caves of Central France, disclose carvings 
 in bone, and engravings on ivory and slate, hereafter referred 
 to, revealing an imitative skill, and powers of observation in 
 the delineation of characteristic details of form and action, 
 such as have rarely, if ever, been equalled in tJie art of modern 
 uncultured races. If by the aid of those si ngularly interesting 
 disclosures, we do indeed recover traces of tlio l^'liut-Folk"^ 
 bdonging to an era estimated by some scientific chronologists 
 
 ' This qtiOHtion w«b first hronght forward l>y tlio nuthor in an •' Inquiry into 
 ^ tho Evidciu.e of the <^xi8teMoo of Primitive lliict'8 in Hcotland prior to the Cwltw." 
 -BrUitih ADsociathn Report, 1850. 
 VOL. I. ,3 
 
m 
 
 MAN PRIMEVAL. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 as antedating our own by hundreds of thousands of years, it 
 is of no Flight importance to perceive that the internal which 
 has wrought such revolutions on the earth as are recorded in 
 the mammaliferous drift, show man the same reasoning, tenta- 
 tive, and inventive mechanician, as clearly distinguished then 
 from the highest orders of contemporary life of the Elephan- 
 tine or cave periods, as he is now from the most intelligent of 
 the brute creation. In truth, so far from arriving by such 
 disclosures any nearer an anthropoid link between man and 
 the brute, the oldest art- traces of the palajotechnic men of 
 Central France not only surpass those of many savage races, 
 but they indicate an intellectual aptitude in no degree inferior 
 to the average Frenchman of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Much of the reasoning relative to the characteristics 
 which archaeological discoveries assign to man in his 
 primeval stage originates in an illogical association of the 
 concomitants of modern intellectual and social progress 
 with the indispensable requisites implied in man's primary 
 condition as a rational being. It is not necessary for the 
 confirmation of a primeval stone or flint period, that we 
 degrade man from that majestic genesis of our race, when 
 he heard the voice of the Lord God amongst the trees of 
 Paradise and was not afraid. Still less is it requisite that wo 
 make of him that " extinct species of anthropoid animal " 
 hastily invented by over-sensitive Mosaic geologists to meet 
 the problematic case of pleistocene products of art. In that 
 primeval transition of the ethnologist in which geology draws 
 to a close, and archseology has its beginning, amid all the 
 rudeness of palseolithic art, we may still recognise tho 
 rationiil lord of creation, the being endowed, not with 
 physical but moral supremacy ; in whom infeiligence aiul 
 accumulated experience were to prove more than a match f<jr 
 all the brute force of those gigantic mammalia so familiar to 
 us now in fossil disclosures of the drift gravels and cave- 
 earth. Even if no more is claimed for primeval man than a 
 condition akin to that of many modern uncivilised races, 
 
"•] 
 
 JIIS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION. 
 
 "is 
 
 [ years, it 
 ,:al which 
 icorded in 
 ng, tenta- 
 .shed then 
 Elephan- 
 eliigent of 
 g by such 
 L man and 
 ic men of 
 iTage races, 
 ree inferior 
 
 ury. 
 
 racteristics 
 m in his 
 bion of the 
 il progress 
 I's primary 
 ary for the 
 id, that we 
 race, when 
 le trees of 
 lite that wo 
 d animal" 
 |sts to meet 
 In that 
 logy drawi? 
 id all the 
 (gnise th(^, 
 not with 
 •ence aad 
 match for 
 Ifamiliar to 
 and cave- 
 lan than a 
 lised races, 
 
 we can still discern the new and higher order of beings for 
 which all others were to make way. 
 
 But if our modern technological standards are to be the 
 
 only received tests of intellectual nobility, " his fair large 
 
 front and eye sublime," with all the suggestive picturings 
 
 of Milton's primeval man, are vain. His arts, though ample 
 
 enough for all his wants, if tested by such standards, declare 
 
 bim no better than "the ignoble creature that arrow heads 
 
 and flint knives would indicate." He needed no weapons 
 
 for war or the chase ; implements of husbandry were scarcely 
 
 less superfluous, amid a profusion ampler than the luxuriant 
 
 plenty of the islands of the Southern Ocean. The needle 
 
 rand the loom were as foreign to his requirements as the 
 
 Iprinting-press or the electric telegraph. What use had he for 
 
 |the potter's wheel, or the sculptor's chisel, or the mason's 
 
 tools '? And if his simple wants did suggest the need of 
 
 some cutting implement, the flint knife, or 
 
 "Such other gardening tools as ait, yet rude, 
 Guiltless of lire, had formed," 
 
 armonise with the simpli ity of that primeval life, and i^s 
 easy toils, far more naturally thnn the most artistic Sheffield 
 cutlery couid do, with all its requisite preliminary processes 
 f mining, smelting, forging, grinding, and hafting the 
 eedless tool. 
 
 The idea, which associates man's intellectual elevation 
 with the accompaniments of mechanical skill, as though 
 they stood somehow in the relation of cause and effect, and 
 with the intellectual as the offspring, instead of the parent, 
 of the mechanical element, ic the product of modern 
 tliough^.. The very element which begets the unintellectual 
 ^ndJtion of the savage is that his whole energies are 
 pended, aiid all his thoughts are absorbed, in providing 
 ily food and clothing, and the requisite tools by which 
 
 Jbose are to be secured ; or where, as in the luxuriant islands 
 f Polynesia, nature seems to provide all things to his hand, 
 
36 
 
 niS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ! 
 
 his degraded moral nature unparadises the Eden of the 
 bread-fruit tree. 
 
 A primeval " Stone period " appears to underlie the most 
 remote traces of European civilisation ; and not only to 
 carry back the evidence of man's presence to times greatly 
 more remote than any hitherto conceived of, but to confirm 
 the idea that his earliest condition was one not only devoid 
 of metallurgy, but characterised by mechanical arts of the 
 very aimplest kind. But it does not necessarily foUow that 
 he was in a condition of intellectual dormancy. The degrad- 
 ation of his moral nature, and not the absence of the arts 
 which we associate with modern luxury and enterprise, 
 made him a savage. The Arab sheikh, wandering with his 
 flocks over the desert, is not greatly in advance of the Indian 
 of the American forests, either in mechanical skill or artistic 
 refinement ; yet the Idumean Job was just such a pastoral 
 Arab, but, nevertheless, a philosopher and a poet, far above 
 any who dwelt amid the wondrous developments of mechani- 
 cal and artistic progress in the cities of the Tigris or the 
 Euphrates. It is not to be inferred, however, that the 
 whole history of the human race is afiirmed by the archaeo- 
 logist to disclose a regular succession of periods — Stone, 
 Bronze, and Iron, or however otherwise designated, — akiu 
 to the organic disclosures of geology ; or that where their 
 traces are found they necessarily imply such an order in 
 their succession. The only true analogy between the geolo- 
 gist and the archaeologist is, that both find their evidence 
 imbedded in the earth's superficial crust, and deduce the 
 chronicles of an otherwise obliterated past by legitimate 
 induction therefrom. The radical difference between the 
 palaeontologist and the ethnologist lies in this, that the one 
 aims at recovering the history of unintelligent divisions of 
 extinct life ; the other investigates all that pertains to a 
 still existing, intelligent being, capable of advancing from 
 his own past condition, or returning to it, under the most 
 diverse external circumstances. 
 
[chap. 
 en of the 
 
 e the most 
 Dt only to 
 ties greatly 
 to confirm 
 inly devoid 
 arts of the 
 foUow that 
 Che degrad- 
 of the arts 
 enterprise, 
 ng with his 
 f the Indian 
 11 or artistic 
 h a pastoral 
 5t, far above 
 I of mechani- 
 ligris or the 
 er, that the 
 the archseo- 
 ods — Stone, 
 lated, — akin 
 where their 
 an order in 
 n the gcolo- 
 3ir evidence 
 deduce the 
 Y legitimate 
 )etween the 
 liat the one 
 divisions of 
 irtains to a 
 jicing from 
 er the most 
 
 II.] 
 
 INSTINCT. 
 
 37 
 
 Amid that strangely diversified series of organic beings 
 which pertains to the studies of the geologist, there appears 
 at length one, '* the beauty of the world, the paragon of 
 animals;"^ a being capable of high moral and intellectual 
 elevation, fertile in design, and with a capacity for trans- 
 mitting experience, and working out comprehensive plans 
 by the combined labours of many successive generations. 
 In all this there is no analogy to any of the inferior orders 
 of beinor. The works of the ant and the beaver, the coral 
 zoophyte and the bee, display singular ingenuity and powers 
 of combination ; and each feathered songster builds its nest 
 with wondrous forethought, in nature's appointed season 
 But the instincts of the inferior orders of creation are in 
 vain compared with the devices of man, even in his savage 
 state. Their most ingenious works cost them no intellectual 
 effort to acquire the craft, and experience adds no improve- 
 ments in all the continuous labours of the wonderful 
 mechanicians. The beaver constructs a dam more perfect 
 than the best achievements of human ingenuity in the 
 formation of breakwaters, and builds fov itself a hut which 
 the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 
 justly contrasts in architectural skill with the ruder dwell- 
 ing of tlie Asiatic Tartar. The bee, in forming its cell, 
 solves a mathematical problem which has tasked the labours 
 of acutcst analysts. But each ingenious artificer is practis- 
 in2j a craft which no master taught, and to which it has 
 nothing to add. The wondrous, instincti\ e, living machine 
 creates for itself the highest pleasure it is capable of in 
 working out the art with which it is endowed ; and accora* 
 plishes it with infallible accuracy, as all its untaught 
 predecessors did, and as, without teaching, each new-born 
 successor will do. To such architects and artists history 
 does not pertain, for their arts knew no primeval condition 
 of imperfection, and witness no progress. Of their works, 
 as of their organic structure, one example is a sufficient 
 
 ^ Hamlet, Act ii. bc. 2, 
 
; I 
 
 A CCUMULA TED KNO WLEDGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I i 
 
 t i 
 
 type of the whole. The palaeontologist's materials have 
 been designated by one popular geologist, " the Medals of 
 Creation;" and the term, though borrowed from the anti- 
 quary, has a significance which peculiarly marks the contrast 
 now referred to between geology and archseology. Like 
 medals struck in the same die, the multitude of examples 
 of an extinct species, each exquisitely modelled coral, and 
 every cast of a symmetrical sigillaria, repeat the same typical 
 characteristics ; and the poet's fancy may be accepted as 
 literally true, in relation to the most ingenious arts which 
 engage the study of the naturalist : — 
 
 " All the winged habitants of paradise, 
 
 Whose songs once mingled with the songs of angels, 
 
 Wove their first nests as curiously and well 
 
 As the wood minstrel in our evil day 
 
 After the labour of six thousand years." ^ 
 
 But with the relics of human art, even in its most primitive 
 stage, it is otherwise. Each example possesses an indivi- 
 duality of its own, for it is the product of an intelligent 
 will, capable of development, and profiting by experience. 
 
 Accumulated knowledge is the grand characteristic of 
 man. Every age bequeaths some results of its experience ; 
 and this constitutes the vantage ground of succeeding 
 generations. The deterioration which follows in the wake 
 of every impediment to such transmission and accumulation 
 of knowledge no less essentially distinguishes man from the 
 ingenious spinners, weavers, and builders, who require no 
 lesson from the past, and bequeath no experience to the 
 future. Man alone can be conceived of as an intelligent 
 mechanician, starting with the first rudiments of art, 
 devising tools, initiating knowledge, and accumulating 
 experience. Whatever, therefore, tends to disclose glimpses 
 of such a primitive condition, and of his earliest acquisitions 
 in mechanical arts and metallurgic knowledge, helps to a 
 just conception of primeval man. Let us then glance at 
 
 ^ Montgomery, Pelican Island. 
 
 ^B^^ 
 
 \ -\'\ 
 
II.] 
 
 PRIMEVAL BRITAIN. 
 
 39 
 
 rials have 
 Medals of 
 I the anti- 
 lie contrast 
 )gy. Like 
 f examples 
 coral, and 
 me typical 
 ccepted as 
 arts which 
 
 t primitive 
 an indivi- 
 intelligent 
 
 perience. 
 teristic of 
 
 Ixperience ; 
 
 [succeeding 
 
 the evidence we possess of such an initial stage of being. 
 And first in seeming chronological order are those traces of 
 human arts in the drift, or in ossiferous caves among the 
 bones of strange orders of beings hitherto supposed to have 
 long preceded the existence of man. In the ancient 
 alluvial deposits — most modern among the strata of the 
 geologist, — lie abundant traces of extinct animal life, be- 
 longing to that recent transitional era of the globe in which 
 man first appears. In nearly all respects they present a 
 contrast to everything wo are familiar with in the history 
 of our earth as the theatre of human action. In a zoologi- 
 cal point of view they include man and the existing races 
 of animals, as well as extinct races which appear to have 
 been contemporaneous with indigenous species. To the 
 archaeologist they are rich in records of that primeval 
 transition in which the beginnings of history lie. How 
 early in that closing geological epoch man appeared, or how 
 late into that archaeological era the extinct fossil mammals 
 survived, are the two independent propositions which the 
 sister sciences have to establish and reconcile. 
 
 The insular character of Great Britain renders it a pecu- 
 liarly interesting epitome of archaeological study, a microcosm 
 complete in itself, and little less ample in the variety of its 
 records than the great continent, divorced from it by the 
 ocean; yet the question, as we have seen, is reopened* 
 Was it already insular when its earliest nomad trod its 
 unhistoric soil? The Caledonian allophylian, as we now 
 know, pursued the gigantic w^hale in an estuary which swept 
 along the base of the far-inland Ochils ; and guided his tiny 
 canoe, above an ocean bed, which had to be upheaved into 
 the sunshine of many centuries before it could become the 
 arena of deeds that live associated on the historic page with 
 the names of Agricola, Edward, Wallace and Bruce, of 
 Montrose, Cromwell, and Mar. Its history dawns in an era 
 of geological mutation ; yet not more so than is now at 
 work in other and neighbouring historic lands. It is a type 
 
40 
 
 PRIMEVAL BRITAIN: 
 
 [chap. 
 
 of the changes which were gradually transformiDg that 
 strange post-tertiary naicrocosm into the familiar historic 
 Britain of this nineteenth century. 
 
 From an examination of the detritus and included fossils, 
 and the disclosures of peat-mosses, we learn that, when 
 the British Isles were in possession of their first colonists, 
 the country must have been almost entirely covered with 
 forests, and overrun by animals long since extinct. In the 
 deposits of marl that underlie the accumulated peat-bogs 
 of Scotland and Ireland occur abundant remains of the 
 fossil elk, an animal far exceeding in magnitude any existing 
 species of deer. Its bones have been found associated with 
 skeletons of the mammoth and other proboscidians, and 
 with numerous teeth, jaws, and detached bones of the 
 extinct rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyaena, fossil ox, etc. ; yet 
 no doubt is now entertained that the elk was contempora- 
 neous with man in the British Isles. Stone hatchets, flint 
 arrow-heads, and fragments of pottery have been recovered 
 along side of its skeleton, under circumstances that satisfy 
 geologists, as well as archaeologists, of their contemporaneous 
 deposition ; its bones have been found with the tool marks 
 of the flint chisel and saw ; and evidence of various kinds 
 seems to exhibit this gigantic deer as an object of the chase, 
 and a source of primitive food, clothing, and tools. 
 
 Professor Jamieson and Dr. Mantell note the discovery, 
 in the county of Cork, of a human body exhumed from a 
 marshy soil, beneath a peat-bog eleven feet thick. The soft 
 parts were converted into adipocere, and the body, thus pre- 
 served, was enveloped in a deer-skin of such large dimen- 
 sions, as to lead them to the opinion that it belonged to the 
 extinct elk. In 1863, Professor Beete Jukes exhibited to 
 the geological section of the British Association the left femur, 
 with a portion of one of the tines of an antler, recently dug 
 up in the vicinity of Edgeworthstown, lying in marl, under 
 forty feet of bog. A transverse cut on the lower end of the 
 femur corresponded with another on the antler, by which 
 
[chap. 
 
 rming that 
 iar historic 
 
 ided fossils, 
 that, when 
 t colonists, 
 >vered with 
 ct. In the 
 I peat-bogs 
 ins of the 
 iny existing 
 iciated with 
 idians, and 
 nes of the 
 IX, etc. ; yet 
 !ontempora- 
 tchets, flint 
 pi recovered 
 that satisfy 
 poraneous 
 tool marks 
 Irious kinds 
 f the chase, 
 lis. - 
 discovery, 
 ed from a 
 The soft 
 , thus pre- 
 rge dimen- 
 iged to the 
 hibited to 
 left femur, 
 |cently dug 
 arl, under 
 end of the 
 by which 
 
 "•] 
 
 ITS FOSSIL FAUNA. 
 
 41 
 
 J. 
 
 they appeared to have been adapted for junction. After 
 carefully examining this bone, I entertain no doubt of its 
 having been cut by a sharp tool, and purposely prepared 
 as the haft of the horn blade which lay beside it. When 
 the two were fastened together, they must have made a 
 formidable weapon. Other bones of this fossil deer have 
 been observed to bear marks of artificial cutting; but 
 one of the most interesting evidences of their use was pro- 
 duced at a meeting of the Archaeological Institute, June 3, 
 1864, when the Earl of Dunraven exhibited an imperfect 
 Irish lyre, found in the moat of Desmond Castle, Adare, the 
 material of which was pronounced by Professor Owen to be 
 bone of the Irish elk. The improbability of the recovery of 
 a musical instrument coeval with the Irish elk has been 
 greatly lessened by more recent discoveries. Among the 
 carved bone and graven ivory relics of the Troglodytes of 
 the Dordogne valley was a reindeer bone pierced at one 
 end by an oblique hole, reaching to the medullary canal. 
 By blowing upon this, as on a hollow key, a shrill sound is 
 produced ; and to this instrument accordingly M. Paul 
 Broca applies the name of the rallying whistle. But a 
 later discovery furnishes more definite evidence of ancient 
 musical art. In 1871 M. E. Piette explored the cavern of 
 Gourdan (Haute-Garonne), and there in a layer of charcoal 
 and cinders, intermingled with flint implements, he found 
 what he describes as a neolithic flute. It also is formed of 
 bone, but pierced with holes at the side : an undoubted 
 example of the art of one of Jubal's primitive disciples. 
 
 The evidence supplied by the ossiferous caves of England, 
 as of the continents of Europe and America, is full of 
 interest from corresponding revelations. Kirkdale Cave, 
 Yorkshire, has acquired a special celebrity from the de- 
 scription and illustration of its contents, given by Dr. 
 Buckland in his Eeliquiw Diluviance, in connection with a 
 diluvial theory subsequently abandoned ; and Kent's Hole, 
 Devonshire, one of the richest depositories of British fossil 
 
4« 
 
 OSSIFEiWUS CAVES. 
 
 [chap 
 
 HI 
 
 carnivora, yielded no less remarkable traces of primitive 
 mechanical arts. Intermingled with remains of the rhino- 
 ceros, cave-hyaena, great cave-tiger, cave-bear, and other 
 extinct mammalia in unusual abundance, lay not only 
 worked flints and the like traces of human art, but also 
 numerous implements wrought from their bones ; and 
 subsequent investigations of ossiferous caves in various 
 localities, by competent scientific explorers, guided by the 
 accumulated knowledge and experience of upwards of thirty 
 years, have given precision to the ideas already entertained 
 of the coexistence of man with the extinct fauna of the 
 caves. 
 
 In those instances, as well as in similar disclosures in 
 Belgium and Southern France, where the remains of man 
 himself, as well as his handiwork, have been found associated 
 with the fossil mammalia, the facts were for a time dis- 
 credited, or explained away, as irreconcilable with long- 
 accepted conclusions relative to the age and early condition 
 of man. But in 1858 another ossiferous limestone cave was 
 accidentally discovered at Brixham, in the vicinity of the 
 famous Kent's Hole, and negotiations were soon after entered 
 into with a view to its thorough exploration for purposes of 
 science. Unlike Kent's Hole Cavern, after a succession of 
 prolonged alternations of occupation by the carnivora of a 
 late quaternary epoch ; of submergence by local floods, with 
 the deposition of their detrital accumulations in beds of vary- 
 ing character and contents ; and the formation over all, at 
 favourable points, of a flooring of carbonate of lime upwards 
 of a foot thick : the falling in of a portion of the roof 
 closed up the entrance of Brixham Cave, except to the 
 smaller rodents and burrow ing animals. Its history as the 
 resort of the older mammalia, and of man himself, was thus 
 abruptly closed, and it thenceforth remained intact, until its 
 recent exploration. Thus, though in its indications of the 
 presence of man, its evidence is meagre when compared with 
 Kent's Hole, it is wholly free from any confusing elements 
 
[chap 
 
 primitive 
 :he rhino- 
 mcl other 
 not only 
 , but also 
 nes ; and 
 a various 
 id by the 
 3 of thirty 
 ntertained 
 na of the 
 
 jlosures in 
 ins of man 
 associated 
 time dis- 
 with. long- 
 T condition 
 
 "•] 
 
 BRIXHAM CA VE. 
 
 43 
 
 such as in that remarkable cavern manifestly pertain to 
 Celtic, Roman, and even Saxon times. ^^^• 
 
 Brixham Cave appears to have long been the resort of 
 hyenas, who dragged their prey into its main passages, and 
 left tiiere the gnawed bones of the rhinoceros, the fossil horse 
 and ox, the reindeer, roebuck, great red deer, etc. It included 
 unmistakable traces of the mammoth, or other huge probo- 
 scidian, was visited by the cave-tiger {Felis spelcea), and 
 finally became a favourite haunt of the great cave-bear 
 {Ursus speI(Bus), as well as of two other species of bears, one 
 of which seems to correspond to the Ursus arctos, or brown 
 bear, and another has been supposed to be identical with 
 the Ursus ferox, or grizzly bear. From time to time it was 
 also visited, and some of its remote recesses explored by 
 man. Thirty-six flints in all have been recovered in the 
 different strata of the cave beds. A few of those are 
 simply un worked flints ; but twenty-three of them betray 
 traces of human workmanship and use ; and include knives 
 and oval and lanceolate blades, closely analogous to imple- 
 ments found in the Cavern of Aurignac, in the Pyrenees, 
 and in that of Le Moustier, in the Dordogne. Others, 
 though mere flint-flakes, bear decided marks of use as 
 scraping tools. Another implement is a round pebble of 
 siliceous sandstone, weighing 1 lb. 3 oz., which must have 
 been brought from a distance, and shows on the side oppo- 
 site to that by which it is most readily grasped by the hand 
 distinct evidence of its use as a hammer stone. One, and 
 only one, object wrought from animal substance, a small 
 cylindrical pin, or rod of ivory, accompani^xi the more 
 durable flints. Some of those indications of the presence of 
 man were found in the bottom, or shingle-bed, overlaid by 
 undisturbed cave-earth rich in mammalian remains ; and 
 the entire succession of beds was overlaid by a layer of 
 stalagmite in which bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and 
 other fossil mammals occurred. • 
 
 It does not appear that Brixham Cave had at any time 
 
44 
 
 BRIXHAM CA VE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 i I 
 
 I 
 
 ! i: 
 
 been inhabited by man. It has no accumulation of spHt 
 bones or broken tools, nor any traces of the hearth, as in 
 Kent's Hole, or in the Caves ol Dordogne and the Pyrenees. 
 But the men of the mammoth period had resorted thither 
 occasionally, — for hiding, it may be, or in pursuit of their 
 prey ; and thus dropped the worked flints which now reveal 
 the evidence of their presence. There is no trace of human 
 bones, or any indication that man fell a prey to the power- 
 ful wild animals which chiefly haunted the cave. But he 
 explored its recesses, in one case at least, to a distance of 
 seventy-four feet from the entrance ; and unless we suppose 
 him to have groped his way thither, when in search of a 
 more effectual hiding-place from some human foe, it seems 
 no unfair surmise that he carried with him the illuminating 
 torch. The extinguished hearths of the French Caves, as at 
 Aurignac and the Vezere, leave no room to question man's 
 early acquaintance with fire. Nor does it seem to me pro- 
 bable that, under the rigorous climate to which he was 
 exposed in that remote post-glacial period, he could fail, as 
 man, to employ the art of fire-making to alleviate his 
 necessities, even as is now done under corresponding 
 exigencies by the V.rctic Esquimaux. Nevertheless it is to 
 be noted that the flint implements found in Brixham Cave 
 are of the rudest character ; and like other specimens of the 
 worked-flints of the men of the Drift or Cave periods, indi- 
 cate a very slight development of constructive skill : unless, 
 as hereafter shown from analogous American examples, 
 there may be reason to regard many of them as merely in 
 the first stage of manufacture into weapons or tools. 
 
 Kent's Cavern yielded a greatly more varied illustration 
 of primitive arts, such as barbed harpoon heads, bodkins, 
 awls, and needles of bone. Like others found in the French 
 Caves, they suggest comparison with the ingenious arts of 
 the Esquimaux : and may also justify the inference that in 
 milder regions, and under other favouring circumstances, 
 contemporary man, then as now, manifested a higher in- 
 
 ii' 
 
II.] 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 45 
 
 m of split 
 irth, as in 
 3 Pyrenees, 
 jed thither 
 lit of their 
 now reveal 
 of human 
 the power- 
 5. But he 
 iistance of 
 ive suppose 
 learch of a 
 le, it seems 
 luminating 
 /aves, as at 
 tion man's 
 to me pro- 
 :ih he was 
 Lild fail, as 
 leviate his 
 esponding 
 ess it is to 
 ham Cave 
 lens of the 
 iods, indi- 
 11 : unless, 
 examples, 
 merely in 
 )ls. 
 
 Uustration 
 bodkins, 
 he French 
 us arts of 
 ce that in 
 mstances, 
 ligher in- 
 
 tellectual vigour when free from the exhausting strain 
 involved in the battle for life, either of the modern hyper- 
 borean, or of the post-glacial artificer of the cave period. 
 
 At an epoch which, though still prehistoric, is modern 
 when compared with the latest traces of post-glacial or cave 
 periods, the worked flints and implements of bone, found in 
 many European primitive deposits, in caverns, chambered 
 cairns, barrows, and among the chance disclosures of the 
 agriculturist, continue to exhibit the most infantile stage 
 of rudimentary art. Fragments of sun-baked urns, and 
 rounded slabs of slate of a plate-like form, are associated 
 with indications of rude culinary practices, illustrative of 
 the habits and tastes of savage man. Broken pottery, 
 calcined bones, charcoal ashes, and other traces of cooking 
 operations, have been noted under similar circumstances, 
 alike in England and on the continent of Europe ; showing 
 where the hearth of the AUophylian had stood. Along with 
 those, in Kent's cavern especially, the flints lay dispersed 
 in all conditions, from the rounded mass as it came out of 
 the chalk, through various stages of progress, on to finished 
 arrrow-heads and hatchets ; while small flint-chips, and 
 partially used flint-blocks, thickly scattered through the 
 soil, served to indicate that the British troglodyte had there 
 his workshop, as well as his kitchen, and wrought the raw 
 material of that primitive stone-period into the requisite 
 tools and weapons of the chase. Nor were indications 
 wanting of the specific food of man in the remote era thus 
 recalled for us. Besides accumulated bones, shells of the 
 mussel, limpet, and oyster, lay heaped together near the 
 mouth of the cave, along with a palate of the scarus : indi- 
 cating that the aborigines found their precarious subsistence 
 from the products of the chase and the spoils of the 
 neighbouring sea. 
 
 The s{ime fact is further illustrated by similar relics of a 
 subterranean stone dwelling at Saverock, near Kirkwall, in 
 Orkney, situated, like the natural caverns of Torbay, close 
 
46 
 
 SCOTTISH REINDEER. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 iii 
 
 !t 
 
 to the seashore. Accumulated remains of charcoal and 
 peat ashes lay intermingled with bones of the small northern 
 sheep, the horse, ox, deer, and whale, and also with some 
 rude implements illustrative of primitive Orcadian arts ; 
 while a Lyer of shells of the oyster, escallop, and periwinkle, 
 the common whelk, the purpura, and the limpet, covered 
 the floor and the adjacent ground, in some places half a 
 foot deep. 
 
 In the interval since I first drew attention to such traces 
 of Scotland's prehistoric centuries, this class of remains has 
 excited special interest. Ancient shell-mounds, analogous 
 to the kjokkenmoddingr of Denmark, discovered on the 
 coasts of Elgin and Inverness-shire, have yielded similar 
 results; and the explorations of other mounds, especially 
 that of Keiss, in Caithness, have proved beyond question 
 that the natives of North Britain were familiar at a compara- 
 tive late period with the Reindeer. Specimens of its horns 
 have been found not only associated with flint imple- 
 ments, cups and personal ornaments of stone and shale, the 
 miscellaneous heaps of fish-bones, littoral shells, and other 
 debris of a kitchen-midden ; but with the masonry of the 
 Scottish Broch, or primitive round tower. Some of the 
 reindeer horns thus found show marks of sawing and 
 cutting, apparently with metal tools. How old they arc 
 may not be strictly determinable ; but they serve to place 
 the Scottish Reindeer Period in a very modern era, compared 
 with that assigned to the *' Reindeer Period " of France ; 
 and remove all grounds for rejecting the statement of 
 Torfneus that, so recently as tne twelfth century, the Jarls 
 of Orkney were wont to cross the Pentland Firth, to chase 
 the roe and the reindeer in the wilds of Caithness. 
 
 But recent discoveries replete with interest and value, 
 which thus extend the resources of the Euiopean archteologist 
 and anthropologist, are only known to me through the 
 ordinary channels of information ; and I turn therefore to 
 another field of study and research, rendered valuable by 
 
 iiiii' 
 
■**»». 
 
 [chap. 
 
 rcoal and 
 iiortliern 
 dth some 
 ian arts ; 
 iriwinkle, 
 , covered 
 es half a 
 
 ich traces 
 naius lias 
 malogous 
 d on the 
 d similar 
 especially 
 question 
 CO 111 para- 
 its horns 
 It imple- 
 jhale, the 
 ind other 
 y of the 
 of the 
 ng and 
 they arc 
 to place 
 ompared 
 France ; 
 ment of 
 ic Jarls 
 chase 
 
 value, 
 3ologiat 
 igh the 
 efore to 
 able by 
 
 I"] 
 
 AMERICAN DRIFT, 
 
 47 
 
 .,.& 
 
 the contrast which it presents in all ways to that of historic 
 Europe, with its confusing elements perte.lning to times 
 when the ambition of .Rome so overrode all nationalities, 
 and obliterated the memories of history, that even now it 
 is hard to persuade some men there was a European world 
 before that of the Csesars. 
 
 I The city of Toronto, on the northern shore of Lake 
 Ontario, is built on the drift clays which have accumulated 
 above the rocks of the Lower Silurian formation to ai 
 average depth of upwards of thirty feet, and in some places 
 to more than seventy feet. The same overlying beds of 
 boulder clay and drift gravel extend Avith monotonous 
 uniformity eastward from Lake Huron to the Ottawa ; and 
 throughout the lower valley of the St. Lav/rence to Labrador. 
 The traces of ancient life recovered from those Canadian 
 glacial depocics, with very few exceptions, correspond to 
 living species, — ineJudiiig Radiata. Mollusca, Articulata, and 
 Vertebrata, now found in other latitudes. As might be 
 anticipated, the older glacial beds indicate a more Arctic 
 condition of life ; and thus accord with other evidence in 
 pointicg to a gradual amelioration of climate in Northern 
 America. But it is only in the boulder clay of the lower 
 St. Lawrence that the palaeontologist finds the fossils by 
 means of which such conclusions are formed ; and alongside 
 of which it would be reasonable to anticipate tra(;es of the 
 presence of man. The construction of an esplanade along 
 the margin of tlio Bay of Toronto, during recent years, 
 exposed a cutting of upwards of two miles in length, and 
 laid bare the virgin soil of the most popidous site now 
 devoted to the civilising processes of European colonisation 
 in Upper Canada. The same drift clay and gravel ha\ o 
 been exposed in numerous other excavations, Init hitherto 
 without disclosures of interest to the archooologiat,, \\\ two 
 cases only, so far as 1 have been able to ascertain, did any 
 trace of prior human prescnco appear. At the depth of 
 nearly two feet from the surface, in front of tlie Parliament 
 
<l II 
 
 ,i 1 , 
 
 II! 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 iliilljii 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 i I 
 
 I i 
 
 ittltlll 
 
 III 
 
 48 
 
 RELICS OF ANCIENT LIFE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 buildings, the bones and horn of a deer lay amid an 
 accumulation of charcoal and wood ashes, and with them a 
 rude stone chisel or hatchet. More recently, to the west of 
 the same spot, at a depth of eight or nine feet, one of tlie 
 cervical vertebrae of the Wapiti {Gervus Canadensis), was 
 found along with a rude stone hatchet and a lance-head 
 of flint. But the travelled fossils of the Toronto drift are 
 of a very different era, and belong to the Hudson river 
 group of the Lower Silurian, like the rocks on which it is 
 superimposed. With varying organic remains imbedded 
 in its clay and gravel, the same formation overlies the true 
 fossiliferous rocks of Western Canada ; and seems to make 
 of its long stiTotch of wooded levels and gentle undulations 
 a country fitted to slumber through untold centuries under 
 the shadow of its forests, a type of the earth of primeval 
 man, until the new-born mechanical science of Europe 
 provided for it the railway and the locomotive, and made 
 its vast chain of rivers and lakes a highway for the steam- 
 boat. With such novel facilities added to the indomitable 
 energy of the intruding occupants, the whole face of the 
 continent is in rapid process of transformation ; and it is 
 well, ere the change is completed, that some note be made 
 of every decipherable index of the characteristics of a past 
 thus destined to speedy obliteration. 
 
 From the uncleared wilds that still occupy the shores of 
 Lake Superior, south-eastward through the great lakes and 
 rivers to the valley of the St. Lawrence, those drift deposits 
 reveal to the geologist marvellous changes that Imvo 
 transpired in this extensive area of the North Americnu 
 continent. Along the low shores stretching away from tho 
 rapids of Sault Ste. Mario to Lake Superior, huge granitic 
 boulders lie strewed like the wreck of some Titanic Bal)el ; 
 raised beaches at various levels on the shores of Lakes 
 Huron, Erie, and Ontario, sliow traces of other rcvolutionn ; 
 and wherever the waves of tho St. Lawrence reopen the 
 deposits along the lower portion of tho valley, tho bottoms 
 
^M 
 
 [chap. 
 
 y amid an 
 ^ith them a 
 
 the west of 
 ;, one of tlie 
 densis), was 
 
 lance-head 
 ito drift are 
 udson river 
 
 which it is 
 s imbedded 
 iies the true 
 ms to make 
 undulations 
 turies under 
 of primeval 
 
 of Europe 
 B, and made 
 : the steam- 
 1 indomitable 
 
 face of the 
 and it is 
 )te be made 
 OS of a past 
 
 lie shores of 
 
 lit lakes and 
 
 :ift deposits 
 
 that have 
 h American 
 ^ly from the 
 igc granitic 
 auic Bal)el ; 
 of Lakes 
 [evolutions ; 
 
 reopen the 
 Iho bottoms 
 
 "•] 
 
 HEirCS OF ANCIENT LIFE, 
 
 45 
 
 n 
 
 of an ancient ocean are revealed, frequently with littoral or 
 
 deep-sea shells imbedded at different levels in the stratified 
 
 drift. But remote as is the antiquity, according to all 
 
 human chronology, to which the fauna of these beds of 
 
 marine detritus belong, the palseontologist detects among 
 
 their post- tertiary fossils the phoca, balsenrs of more than 
 
 one species, fishes, articulata, and the shells of many 
 
 mollusca still inhabiting the neighbouring ocean along the 
 
 northern Atlantic coasts. The period, therefore, whicli 
 
 embraces those relics of ancient life is the same to which 
 
 man belongs ; and they mark for it one of the phases of that 
 
 last transitional era during which the continent Avas being 
 
 prepared for his entrance upon it. Since the natica, fusus, 
 
 turritelJa, and other marme animals of the post-pleiocenc 
 
 period, were the living occupants of the St. Lawrence valley, 
 
 vast changes h;.,/e been wrought on the physical geography 
 
 of the continent. The relative levels of the sea and land 
 
 liave altered, so as to elevate old aca-margius to the slopes 
 
 h jOf lofty hills, and leave many hundred miles inland escarp- 
 
 ™ents wrought by the waves of that ancient sea. The 
 
 "conditions of climate have undergone no less important 
 
 'chaTiges. developing in a corresponding degree the new 
 
 character and conditions of life pertaining to this bed of an 
 
 lextiuct ocean : C' /ered with successive de2)osits of marine 
 
 *deti:iiis, and then elevated into the region of sun and rain, 
 
 be > ' othed with the umbrageous forest, and to become 
 
 10 dwe- 'ng-place through another dimly-measured period 
 
 ^f tlie vva^dti, the beaver, and the bison ; and with them, of 
 
 fhc Iroquois, the Huron, and the Chippewa : all alike the 
 
 fauna of conditions of life belonging to a transitional period 
 
 )f the New World preparatory to our own. 
 
 Marvellous lus are those cosmical revolutions belonging to 
 |he period of emergence of the northern zone of America 
 >m the great Arctic Ocean, wlien we look on each 
 )nipk'ted whole the process appears to have been character- 
 id by no almormal violence. Sluwl^ tlirougli 
 
 V(M 1 „ 
 
 long 
 
l^l^^B 
 
 
 
 Wu Ml 
 
 1% He 
 
 i 1 
 
 ■H t 
 
 SSi 
 
 l^^B ■ ^ ' 
 
 50 
 
 EXTINCT FAUNA. ' 
 
 [chap. 
 
 centuries the ocean shallowed. The deep-sea organisms 
 of a former generation were overlaid by the littoral shells of 
 a newer marine life, and then the tidal waves retreated 
 from the emerging sea-beach ; until now we seek far dov/n 
 in the gulf of the St. Lawrence and on the coast of Labrador 
 for the living descendants of species gathered from the post- 
 pleiocene drift. Thus the closing epoch of geology in the 
 New World, as in the Old, is brought into contact with thut 
 in which its archaeology begins ; and we look upon the 
 North American continent as at length prepared for the 
 presence of man. 
 
 Such records are here noted among the disclosures of the 
 great valley of the St. Lawrence, which drains well-nigh hiilf 
 a continent ; fo^* it is in the valleys by which the present 
 drainage of historic areas takes place, that not only such 
 deposits of recent shells and fossil relics of existing fauna 
 occur, but also that the most extensive remains of the 
 extinct mammalia are disclosed, in association with objects 
 serving to link them with those of modern eras. In for- 
 mations of this character have been found, in the lower valley 
 of the Mississippi, the Elephas 'primigenius, the Mastodon 
 Ohioticus, the Megalonyx, Megalodon, Ereptodon, and the 
 Equus curvidens, or extinct American horse : with many 
 other traces of an unfamiliar fauna, and also a flora, con- 
 temporaneous with those gigantic mammifers, but which also 
 include both marine and terrestrial representatives of exist- 
 ing species. Corresponding in its great geographical out- 
 lines very nearly to its present condition, the American 
 continent must have presented in nearly all other character- 
 istics a striking contrast to its modern aspect, clothcil 
 though it seems to us in primeval forests, and scarcely 
 modified by the presence of man. In the post-pleiocene 
 formations of South Carolina, exposed along the bed of the 
 Ashloy River, remains of the megatherium, megalodon, ami 
 other gigantic extinct mammals occur, not only associated 
 with existing species peculiar to the American continent; but 
 
[chap, 
 
 organisms 
 al shells of 
 J retreated 
 k far dovm 
 if Labrador 
 [n the post- 
 [ogy in the 
 ;t with that 
 c upon the 
 •ed for the 
 
 sures of the 
 ill-nigh half 
 the present 
 t only such 
 isting fauna 
 ains of the 
 with objects 
 as. In fol- 
 lower valley 
 le Mastodon 
 'on, and the 
 with many 
 [I flora, con- 
 it which also 
 ves of exist- 
 .phical out- 
 le American 
 T character- 
 !ct, clothed 
 ,nd scarcely 
 ist-plciocene 
 le bed of the 
 [alodon, and 
 associated 
 Intinent; Imt 
 
 n.] 
 
 EXTINCT FA r"^^ 
 
 51 
 
 also apparently with others, hitherto believed to have been 
 domesticated and introduced for the first time by modern 
 European colonists. But more interesting for our present 
 purpose, as possibly indicating the contemporaneous ex- 
 istence of some of those strange mammals with man, are 
 notices of remains of human art in the same formation. 
 Professor Holmes, in exhibiting a collection of fossils from 
 tlie post-pleiocene of South Carolina before the Academy of 
 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, remarked : " Dr. Klipstein, 
 who resides near Charleston, in digging a ditch for the 
 purpose of reclaiming a large swamp, discovered and sent 
 to me the tooth of a mastodon, with the request that I should 
 go down and visit the place, as there were indications of the 
 bones and teeth of the animal still remaining in the sands 
 which underlie tlie peat-bed. Accordingly, with a small 
 party of gentlemen, w^e visited the doctor, and succeeded 
 not only in obtaining several other teeth and bones of this 
 tmimal, but nearly one entire tusk, and immediately along- 
 side of the tusk discovered the fragment of pottery which I 
 hold in my hand, and which is similar to that manufactured 
 at the present time by the American Indians."^ It would 
 not be wise to found hasty theories on such strange juxta- 
 position of relics, possibly of very widely separated periods. 
 Tiie Ashley River has channeled for itself a course through 
 the eocene and post-pleiocene formations of South Carolina, 
 and where these are exposed on its shores the fossils arc 
 washed from their beds, and become mingled with the 
 remains of recent indigenous and domestic animals, and 
 objects of human art. But the discovery of Dr. Klipstein 
 was made in excavating an undisturbed and, geologically 
 speaking, a comparatively recent formation. The tusk of 
 the mastodon lay alongside of the fragment of pottery, in a 
 leposit of the peat and sands of the post-pleiocene beds, 
 [mmediately underneath lie marine deposits, rich with 
 
 > Procmtinga qf the Academy q/* Natural Sctencea, Philadelphia, July 1859, 
 }\f. 178, 180. 
 
! I 
 
 ! i 
 
 52 
 
 MAN AND THE MASTODON. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 varied groups of moUusca, corresponding to species now 
 living on the sea-coast of Carolina, but also including two 
 fossil species no longer to be met with there, though 
 common in the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indian 
 seas. 
 
 Here the pakeontology of the New World discloses to us 
 types of a fauna pertaining to its latest transitional period, 
 which serve to illustrate the marvellous contrast between 
 its commencement and its close. Until the discovery of 
 teeth of the megatherium in the post-pleiocene bed of the 
 Ashley River, remains of that extinct mammal had been 
 found only in the state of Georgia, in North America, while 
 the Mastodon Ohioticus and Elephas primigenius are 
 among the well-known fauna of the Canadian drift. Of 
 those, some North American localities have furnished 
 remains in remarkable profusion, but none more so than the 
 celebrated morass in Kentucky, known by its homely but 
 expressive name of the Big-bone Lick. Imbedded in the 
 blue clay of this ancio^^t. bog, entire skeletons, or detached 
 bones, of not less than one hundred mastodons and twenty 
 mammoths, have been found, besides remains of the 
 megalonyx and other extinct quadrupeds. A magnificent 
 skeleton of the Mastodon Ohioticus, now in the British 
 Museum, was discovered, with teeth and bones of many 
 others, near the banks of La Pomme de Terre, a tributary of 
 the Osage Eiver, Missouri ; and there once more we seem 
 to come upon contemporaneous traces of man. "The 
 bones," says Mantell, who examined them in the presence of 
 Mr. Albert Koch, their discoverer, "were imbedded in ci 
 brown sandy deposit full of vegetable matter, with recog- 
 nisable remains of the cypress, tropical cane, and swamp- 
 moss, stems of the palmetto, etc., and this was covered by 
 " beds of blue clay and gravel to a thickness of about 15 feet. 
 Mr. Koch states, and he personally assured me of the 
 correctness of the statement, that an Indian flint arrow-heml 
 was found beneath the leg-bones of this skeleton, and four 
 
II.] 
 
 INDIAN TRADITIONS. 
 
 53 
 
 "1 
 
 icloses to us 
 onal period, 
 ist between 
 liscovery of 
 bed of the 
 il had been 
 lerica, while 
 [genius are 
 1 drift. Of 
 c furnished 
 1 so than the 
 homely but 
 dded in the 
 or detached 
 and twenty 
 liins of the 
 magnificent 
 the British 
 es of many 
 tributary of 
 are we seem 
 nan. "The 
 presence of 
 )eddcd in a 
 with recog- 
 ,nd swamp- 
 covered by 
 out 15 feet. 
 me of the 
 arrow-head 
 u, and four 
 
 similar weapons were imbedded in the same stratum 
 Some of the deductions of Mr. Koch were extravagant, and 
 tended to bring discredit on his statement. But there 
 appear to be no just grounds for doubting the main facts. 
 A full-sized view of the large arrow-head is given in the 
 Smithsonian Eeport of 1872. Another, but more dubious 
 account, preserved in the A'.neincan Journal of Science, 
 describes the discovery in Missouri of the bones of a 
 mammoth, with considerable portions of the skin, associated 
 with stone spear-heads, axes, and knives, under circumstances 
 which suggest the idea that it had been entangled in a bog, 
 and there stoned to death and partially consumed by fire.^ 
 Such contiguity of the works of man with those extinct 
 mammals warns us at least to be on our guard against any 
 supercilious rejection of indications of his ancient presence 
 in the New World as well as in the Old. : i ^ ^ • U;'. 
 Whether or not the mammoth and mastodon had been 
 contemporary with man, their remains were objects of 
 BufHciently striking magnitude to awaken the curiosity even 
 of the unimj^rossible Indian ; and traditions were common 
 among the aborigines relative to their existence and destruc 
 tion. M. Fabri, a French officer, informed Buffon that they 
 ascribed those bones to an animal which they named the 
 Fere anx Bccufs. Among tae Shawnees, and other southern 
 tribes, the belief was current that the mastodon once 
 • occupied the continent along with a race of giants of 
 ; corresponding proportions, and that both perished together 
 by the thunderbolts of the Great Spirit. Another Indian 
 tradition of Virginia told that these monstrous quadrupeds 
 had assembled together, and were destroying the herds of 
 ;deer and bisons, with the other animals created by tlic 
 Great Spirit for the use of his red children, when he slew 
 them all ^v-ith his thunderbolts, excepting the big bull, who 
 defiantly presented his enormous forehead to the bolts, and 
 
 1 Mantell'a FomUs of the Britixh Mmeun), p. 473. 
 
 ^ Ainmcan Juurn. of Science and Arti), vol. xxxvi. ]». 199, First Series. 
 
54 
 
 GIANTS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 shook them off as they fell ; until, being at length wounded, 
 he fled to the region of the great lakes, where he is to this 
 day. 
 
 The first notice in an English scientific journal of the 
 fossil mammals of the American drift furnishes such a 
 counterpart to the Shawnee traditions of extinct giants as 
 might teach a lesson to modern speculators in science ; 
 when it is borne in remembrance that the difiiculty now is 
 to reconcile with preconceived beliefs the discovery of works 
 of human art alongside of their remains. In 1712, certain 
 gigantic bones, which would now most probably be referred 
 to the mastodon, were found near Cluverack, in New 
 England. The fiimous Dr. Increase Mather soon after 
 communicated the discovery to the Koyal Society of 
 London ; and an abstract in the Philosophical Transactions 
 duly set forth his opinion of this supposed confirmation of 
 the existence of men of prodigious stature in the antedilu- 
 vian world, as proved by the bones and teeth, which he 
 judged to be human, " particularly a tooth, which was a very 
 large grinder, weighing four pounds and three-quarters, 
 with a thigh bone seventeen feet long."^ They were doubt- 
 less locked upon with no little satisfaction by Dr. Mather, 
 as a striking confirmation of the Mosaic record, that " there 
 were giants in those days." To have doubted the New 
 England philosopher's conclusions might have been even 
 more dangerous then than to believe them now. Possibly, 
 after the lapse of another century and a half, some of our 
 own confused minglings of religious questions with scientific 
 investigations will not seem less foolish than the antedilu- 
 vian giants of the New England divine. 
 
 In all that relates to the history of man in the New 
 World, we have ever to reserve ourselves for further truths. 
 There are languages of living tribes, of which we have 
 neither vocabulary nor grammar. There are nations of 
 whose physical aspect we scarcely know anything ; and 
 
 ^ Philoaophical Tranaactiont, vol. xxiv. p. 85. 
 
 # 
 
 .4^. . 
 
 ^sste. 
 
:, in 
 soon 
 
 [chap. 
 
 wounded, 
 s is to this 
 
 lal of the 
 es such a 
 D giants as 
 a science ; 
 Ity now is 
 y of works 
 1 2, certain 
 be referred 
 New 
 after 
 Society of 
 'ansactions 
 irmation of 
 e antedilu- 
 , which he 
 was a very 
 e-quarters, 
 ere doubt- 
 r. Mather, 
 hat " there 
 the New 
 been even 
 Possibly, 
 >me of oiu' 
 scientific 
 antedilu- 
 
 the New 
 
 ler truths. 
 
 we have 
 
 lations of 
 
 ling; and 
 
 I..] 
 
 DRIFT DISCLOSURES. 
 
 ^ 
 ,(*%? 
 
 55 
 
 areas where it is a moot point even now, whether the 
 ancient civilisation of central America may not be still 
 a living thing. The ossiferous caves of England have only 
 revealed their wonders during the present century, and the 
 works of art in the French drift lay concealed till our own 
 day. We cannot, therefore, even guess what America's 
 disclosures will be. Discoveries in its ossiferous caverns 
 have already pointed to the same conclusions as those of 
 Europe. A cabinet of the British Museum is filled with 
 fossil bones of mammalia, obtained by Dr. Lund and 
 M. Claussen from limestone caverns in the Brazils, closely 
 resembling the ossiferous caves of Europe. The relics were 
 imbedded in a reddish-coloured loam, covered over with a 
 thick stalagniitic flooring; and along with them lay 
 numerous bones of genera still inhabiting the continent, 
 with shells of the large huUmus, a common terrestrial 
 mollusc of South America. , 
 
 No clear line of demarcation can be traced here between 
 the era of the extinct carnivora and edentata, and those of 
 existing species ; and there is therefore no greater cause of 
 wonder than in the analogous examples of Europe, to learn 
 that in the same detritus of those Brazilian caves Dr. Lund 
 found human skeletons, which he believed to be coeval with 
 some of the extinct mammalia. Nor have the first dis- 
 closures of works of art in the American drift still to be 
 made. 1 have in my possession an imperfect flint knife 
 (Fig. l), to all appearance as unquestionable a relic of 
 human art as the most symmetrical of those assigned to a 
 similar origin by the explorers of the French and English 
 drift-gravels. It was given to me by Mr. P. A. Scott, an in- 
 telligent Canadian, who found it at a depth of upwards 
 of fourteen feet, among the rolled gravel and gold-bearing 
 quartz of the Grinell Leads, in Kansas Territor}'^, while 
 [engaged in digging for gold. In an alluvial bottom, in the 
 Blue Range of the Rocky Mountains, distant several 
 [hundred feet from a small stream called Clear Creek, a shaft 
 
p' IK! 
 
 > I . ' ! 
 
 ! lit 
 
 I; ill 
 
 m 
 
 ii : i 
 iliiliii 
 
 'III I 
 
 1 , nil 
 
 ! hi 
 
 • II 
 
 1 1 
 
 il 
 
 ' ti 
 
 I' I' 
 
 '" iiiiiiilii 
 
 ^ IB.i 
 
 s« 
 
 DRIFT DISCLOSURES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 was sunk, passing through four feet of rich black soil, anil 
 below this, through upwards of ten feet of gravel, reddish 
 clay, and rounded quartz. Here the flint implement was 
 found, and its unmistakably artificial origin so impressed 
 the finder, that he secured it, and carefully noted the depth 
 at which it lay. 
 
 It is difiicult at present to test such chance evidence 
 accurately. The discovery of the palseolithic implements 
 of Europe had been recorded upwards of half a century 
 before their true significance was recognised ; whereas the 
 American explorer is on the look-out for similar disclosures, 
 and evinces at times a feeling as thouojh the honour of his 
 country is imperilled if he fail. It will be set n, moreover, 
 from the narrative of a subsequent chapter, that the 
 abundance of flint and stone implements in the virgin soil 
 
 Fio. 1.— Flint Knifi-. Orinell Leads. 
 
 of the New World is almost marvellous. Tlie discovery, 
 therefore, of stray specimens in modern river-gravels, the 
 washings of gold-drift, or in any excavations liable to be 
 affected by surface admixtures, must be viewed with the 
 utmost caution. Several flint implements from the auri- 
 ferous gravel of California were produced at the Paris 
 Expositicii of 1855. According to the geological survey 
 of Illinois, for 1866, the bones of the mastodon and other 
 fossil mammals have been found in abed of "local drift" 
 near Alton, underlying the Loess ; and at the same depth 
 stone axes and flint spear- heads w^re obtained.* 
 
 * Geol, Hurvey qf lUinoia, by A. H. Woitlifii, vol. i. j». 38. 
 
 
 m 
 
''"^ 
 
 [chap. 
 
 soil, and 
 1, reddish 
 naent was 
 impressed 
 the depth 
 
 evidence 
 iplements 
 I century 
 ereas the 
 sclosures, 
 ur of his 
 moreover, 
 
 that the 
 drgin soil 
 
 II.] 
 
 DRIFT DISCLOSURES. 
 
 57 
 
 iscovery, 
 vels, the 
 »lo to be 
 with the 
 le auri- 
 le Paris 
 d survey 
 id other 
 il drift " 
 LC depth 
 
 But such disclosures of worked flints or polished imple- 
 ments of stone are cast into the shade by the reputed dis- 
 covery of human remains in the auriferous drift of California. 
 In 1857 Dr. C. F. Winslow produced a fragment of a 
 human skrU found eighteen feet beh w the surface, in the 
 "pay drift," at Table Mountain, in connection with the 
 bones of the mastodon and fossil elephant. A later dis- 
 closure brought to light a complete human skull, reported to 
 have been discovered in auriferous gravel, underlying five 
 successive lava formations. Professor Whitney, after 
 satisfying himself of the genuineness of the discovery, pro- 
 duced the skull at the Chicago meeting of the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1869, to the 
 manifest delight of some who were prepared at once to 
 relegate American man to a remoter epoch than the Flint- 
 folk of the Abbeville and Amiens gravel drift. More 
 recently a highly polished plummet of syeaite, in the form of 
 a double cone perforated at one end, was produced before 
 the Chicago Academy of Sciences, as an implement found at 
 a depth of thirty feet, in the drift gravel of San Joaquin, 
 California, by some workmen engaged in digging a well. In 
 this case also Professor Whitney appears to have had no 
 hesitation in assigning it to the age of the foswil elephant 
 and mastodon. It does not seem to have been recognised 
 how much more probable it is that a highly finished stone 
 implement like the San Joaquin plummet should fall from 
 the surface, in the process of excavation, and so be perhaps 
 no older than the era of the Mexican conquest, than that 
 it is a choice specimen of post- pleiocene art. 
 
 Much of the evidence hitherto adduced for the antiquity 
 of the American man has a singularly modern aspect. The 
 human skulls are of the predominant Indian type of the 
 present day, though that need not surprise us. Dr. Usher 
 only notes this in the case of the " human fossils " from the 
 Ijiazil Caves, to add : " this consideration may spare science 
 the trouble of any further speculation on the modus through 
 
nil 
 
 
 'f ' 
 
 \'\ \\'\mv 
 ill 
 
 k 
 
 i II 
 
 \ 
 
 111! 
 
 Hi iriiiiii 
 ii 
 
 ,1 !l 
 
 '■I 
 
 ii! 
 
 ijlli 
 
 58 
 
 DRIFT DISCLOSURES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 which the New World became peopled from the Old ; for 
 after carrying backwards the existence of a people monu- 
 mentally into the very night of time, when we find that 
 they have also preserved the same type back to a remote, 
 even to a geological, period, there can be no necessity for 
 going abroad to seek their origin."^ The question of this 
 fancied American type will come under review hereafter. 
 But on a par with this evidence are fragments of baskets 
 and clay vessels submitted to the New Orleans Academy of 
 Sciences in 1867, as contemporary with the elephant and 
 other fossil mammals, the bones of which were found in 
 digging the same salt-pits in which the pottery and basket- 
 work were met with ; or a fragment of cane-matting pre- 
 sented to the Smithsonian Institution in 1866 by Mr. J. 
 F. Cleu, along with portions of tusks and teeth of the fossil 
 elephant which lay above it, at a depth of thirteen feet in a 
 Louisiana salt mine. Matting, or basket-work, of split 
 cane is as common among the contents of southern 
 Indian graves as fragments of pottery ; and both may be 
 reasonably suspected to carry with them evidence incon- 
 sistent with any geological antiquity. 
 
 Mr. Charles C. Jones notes a discovery of a more 
 suggestive character, due also to the search for gold. In the 
 state of Georgia the river Chattahoochee flows through an 
 auriferous region of the Nacoochee valley. From time to 
 time the gold-diggers have made extensive cuttings through 
 the soil and underlying drift-gravel, down to the slate-rock 
 upon which it rests. During one of these excavations, at a 
 depth of some nine feet, intermingled with the gravel and 
 boulders of the drift, three large flint implements were 
 found, measuring between three and four inches in length, 
 and " in material, manner of construction, and appearance 
 so nearly resembling some of the rough so-called flint 
 hatchets belonging to the drift-type that they might very 
 readily be mistaken the one for the others."^ With those 
 
 ->^4 'Sypti of Mankind, p. 361. - Antiquities of the Soulhem Indians, p. 293. 
 
 >iil,"-ttiii^>ii(lL 
 
I..] 
 
 LARGE OVOID DISCS. 
 
 a more 
 
 ■I 
 
 may not unfitly be classed a large implement of hornstone, 
 now in the collection of the Scottish Antiquaries, obtained 
 by me from a dealer in Indian curiosities at Lewiston in the 
 State of New York, where it was said to have been found 
 at a great depth when sinking a well. Its form, though 
 common enough among the implements of the American 
 Mound-Builders, rarely, if ever, occurs on so large a scale 
 
 Fia. 2.— Lewiston Flint Implement. J. 
 
 in Europe, except among palaeolithic remains. Ovoid discs 
 of the same class attracted the attention of the Rev. J. 
 MacEnery in his early explorations of Kent's Cavern, and 
 have anew been brought to light in the recent systematic 
 researches there. Mr. Evans figures one found there in 
 1866 (Fig. 3), somewhat smaller, and more ovoid in 
 outline, but of the same type. The Lewiston implement 
 
6o 
 
 CA VE DISCLOSURES. 
 
 [chap, 
 
 is showu in Fig. 5^. It has been reduced to the present 
 shape l)y comparatively few strokes ; and on the reverse 
 side it appears as if broken off by a final ill-directed blow. 
 One edge is worn and fractured as if by frequent use. 
 Unfortunately more minute information of the locality and 
 the circumstances attendant on its discovery could not 
 bo obtained. But even if it be regarded as only a stray relic 
 of the same class as those hereafter described among the 
 ancient mound deposits of Wisconsin and Ohio, it possesses 
 a novel interest from its discovery near the banks of the 
 
 Fia. 8.— F lit Disc, Kent's Cavern, \. 
 
 Niagara Biver, where no traces of the Mound -Builders or 
 tiieir arts occur. Mr. Evans permits me to introduce Iutc 
 the analogous example from Kent's Cavern. It is of j^rcy 
 cheriy flint, and chipped on both faces with more than 
 wonted care. Though smaller thnn the Lcwiston im})le- 
 ment, the difference is only about half an inch ; the larger 
 of the two being a little over five inches long. I hi'vc pur- 
 
 r^i 
 
 
 .s,W 
 
 vfsr 
 
 K 11 
 
 ■ Y. ,' 
 
"•] 
 
 Cy^F£ DISCLOSURES. 
 
 6i 
 
 posely engraved the Lewiston disc on a large scale, in order 
 to suggest more clearly the proportions of this class of im- 
 plements ; and to show the close analogy traceable between 
 those of the American continent, and the European dis- 
 closures of the river and cave drift. 
 
 Such, then, are some of the indications which have been 
 assumed to point to the ancient presence of man in the New 
 World. If we estimate this by historical, and not by 
 geological periods, whatever proofs of hi^ antiquity 
 archaeology may supply will be found to accord with other 
 evidence ; and especially with proofs furnished by the 
 multitude of independent languages, and the diversity of 
 types of race, ranging from the Arctic circle to Tierra del 
 Fucffo. But it would be rash to assume from the partial 
 evidence yet obtained, that the juxtaposition of flint arrow- 
 heads with the mastodon of Missouri, the pottery with 
 bones and tusk of the same animal in the post-pleiocene of 
 South Carolina, the human bones in the rich ossiferous 
 caverns of the Brazils, or the flint implements, and human 
 remains recovered from Californian and o^her auriferous 
 diifts, unquestionably piove the existence of man on the 
 American continent contemporaneouBly with the fossil 
 elephant or the m.istodon. 
 
 The proofs hitherto adduced have been at best only 
 suggestive of further research. There is no question tlmt 
 Dr. Lund visited that portion of Jirazil lying between the 
 liio das Velhas and the liio Paraopeba, with very important 
 palseontological results. He there found a mountain chain 
 of limestone rock, abounding with fissures and caverns ; 
 and from some of these calcareous caves he recovered, not 
 only the bones of numerous fossil inammals imbcdd<'d in 
 red eartli, but also human bones which l:e pronounced to bo 
 fossil. The remains included not only those of shiths and 
 armadillos of gigantic size, but also extinct genera of 
 monkeys, all assumed to have been contemporaricH of the 
 fossil cavo-mcu. But expcrienco is teaching the ptdieonto- 
 
' ,1 ; i 
 
 1 ilany 
 
 lii.u,,..,. 
 
 : ! Illillllill 
 
 I ' 
 
 I in' 
 
 k 
 
 ! Ill, I , 
 
 'oil I nnii 
 
 n iliPiif!! 
 
 iik- 
 
 111)1 
 
 62 
 
 AMERICAN CRANIAL TYPE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 logist that the mere recovery of bones or implements 
 from the aanie cave is no proof of contenipoj-aneity. A 
 cave which had been filled with cave-earth and bone 
 breccia, together with extinct animals of the period of the 
 cjlyptodon and the mylodon, may in a long subsequent 
 era have become the shelter or the place of sepulture of 
 Indians, 
 
 Nearly forty years have elapsed since Dr. Lund's dis- 
 ccvery. Since then the lamented Agassiz has visited 
 Brazil with valuable results to science ; but no additional 
 light has been thrown on the significance of the disclosures 
 of this interesting locality. One important fact, however, 
 has not only been admitted, but insisted upon. The 
 crania of the fossil men of Brazil betray no traces of 
 approximation to that of the fossil monkey, but on the 
 contrary differ in no respect from the predominant 
 American Indian type ; and the same has since been 
 afiirmed of a set of human skulls now in the Smithsonian 
 collection, which were found incrusted with stalagmite, in 
 a limestone cave in Calaveras County, California. Their 
 fossil character and extreme antiquity were at first assumed 
 to be indisputable. In this other respect they correspond 
 with the Brazilian fossil remains. Professor Jeifreys Wyman 
 reported of them that they present ** no peculiarities by 
 which they could be distinguished from other crania of 
 California."^ 
 
 Here then might seem to be additional proofs " that 
 the general type of races inhabiting America at that incon- 
 ceivably remote era was the same which prevailed at the 
 period of the Columbian discovery ;"^ and that, there- 
 fore, Dr. Morton's assumed uniform cranial type pertains 
 to the American man from remotest geological time. Theie 
 seems more reason, however, for believing that the Calaveras 
 Cave was a place of interment of the present race of 
 
 I ilHiil 
 
 » SmUhMmian lii-porf, 1807, p. 407. 
 • Dr. Uiher, Ti/pes of Mankind, p. 301. 
 
IT.] 
 
 ANTTQUTTY C^F 7WE AMERICAN MAM. 
 
 (>^ 
 
 m 
 
 Indians ; and that its crania are very modern compared 
 even with the fossil Caribs of Guadaloupe. But the increas- 
 ing evidence of the remote antiquity of the European roan 
 h^s naturally suggested a revision of the evidence adduced 
 in confirmation of his ancient presence in the New World. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell latterly regarded with greater favour 
 than he had once done, the possible coexistence of man 
 with the mastodon, megalonyx, and other extinct species, 
 among bones of which, in the loam of the Mississippi valley, 
 near Natchez, a human pelvic bone was recovered, and made 
 the basis of very comprehensive theories. In the delta of the 
 same river, near New Orleans, a complete human skeleton is 
 reported to have been found, buried at a depth of sixteen 
 feet, under the remains of four successive cypress forests ; 
 and this discovery furnished the data from which Dr. 
 Bennet Dowler has assigned to the human race an exist- 
 ence in the delta of the Mississippi 57,000 years ago.^ 
 
 Evidence of this exceptional nature requires to be used 
 with modest caution Antiquaries of Europe having found 
 tobacco pipes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 alongside of pottery and other undoubted remains of 
 Roman art, have hastily antedated the use of tobacco to 
 classic times. ^ On equally good evidence it might be 
 carried back to those of the mammoth, as the discovery of 
 a similar relic lias been recorded at a depth of many feet, 
 in sinking a coal-pit at Misk, in Ayrshire." 
 
 > TyiH'» of Manktnd, p. 272. 
 
 2 La Normand'w. l^'outenuiine, )>. 7(5. 
 
 ^ Prehktork Annala of Scotland, vol. ii. p. flOO. 
 
I 
 
 64 
 
 THE QUARRY 
 
 [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE QUARRY. 
 
 THR QUAUUT— BUIXHAM OWE — BUrXHAM PUNT IMPLEMENT- FLINT BIDQK, OHIO- 
 FLINT I'lTS— DUIFT QUAURY DKPOSITS— TUACEa OF PALAEOLITHIC ART— LANCEO- 
 LATE FLINTS — ALMOND-SHAPED FLINTS — THE SHAWNEE3 — THE COLORADO 
 INDIANS— CACHES OP WORKED FLINTS— SEPULCHRAL DEPOSITS— CAVE DRIFT 
 DISCLOSURES — ILLUSTRATIVE ANALOaiES — CINCINNATI COLLECTIONS — HORN- 
 STONE SPEARHEADS- AMERICAN NEOLITHIC ART— FLINT DRILLS— MODES OP 
 PERFORATION— FLINT KNIVES- RAZORS AND SCRAPERS— ARROW-HEAD FORMS 
 — DI8C0IDAL STONES— SINKERS AND LASSO-STONES— CUPPED STONES— ARCH^O- 
 LOr.lTAL THEORIES — OEOBOIA BOULDERS - HAND CUP-STONES — NEOLITHIC 
 GRINDSTONES- ARCHiKOLOUIOAL ENIGMAS— ANCIENT ANALOGIES. 
 
 If mere rudeness is to be accepted as the indication of the 
 first artless efforts of man to furnish himself with tools, the 
 investigator into primeval history may assume that in the 
 rudest of the drift and cave implements he has examples of 
 the most infantile efforts in the industrial arts. He may 
 even indulge the fancy that in the large, unshapely flint 
 implements recovered from ossiferous caves and alluvial 
 deposits, alongside of remains of the extinct fauna of a 
 palasolithic period so dissimilar to any historical era, he has 
 traced his way back to the fii'st crude efforts of human ai't, 
 if not to the evolutionary dawn of a semi-rjitional artificer. 
 It is a significant fact that no such clumsy unshapeliness 
 cliaracterises the stone implements of the most degraded 
 savage races. Examples may indeed be produced, selected 
 for their rudeness, from among the implements of modern 
 8avag(^a. But liushmen, Patagoniaus. I,. . Aus- 
 
 tralianfl, or whntever other race bo k \ .4 •• lli* . 1,e of 
 liumanily, on/^.h .iinplay ingenuity nd idu .» i i . i tmi- 
 
 ^iiima... 
 
....] 
 
 BRIXHAM CA VE. 
 
 6S 
 
 facture df some special tools or weapons. Nor is it less 
 worthy of note tliat the commoner implements and weapons 
 of flint and stone recovered from ancient Scandinavian, 
 Gaulish, and British graves, from the lake dwellings of 
 Switzerland, the Danish shell-mounds, and other European 
 depositories of prehistoric Industrie 1 art, are scarcely distin- 
 guishable from the flint knives, scrapers, lance and arrow- 
 heads, or the stone gouges, axes, and mauls, of the Ked 
 Indians, or of the Islanders of the Pacific. Peculiar types 
 do indeed occur; and the materials abounding in special 
 localities, such as the obsidian of Mexico, or the greenstone 
 of Tasmania, give a specific character to the implements of 
 some regions ; but, on the whole, the arts of the stone 
 periods of different races, however widely separated alike 
 l)y space aud time, present so many analogies that they 
 seem to confirm the iviea of certain instinctive operations of 
 human ingenuity finding everywhere the same expression 
 within the narrow range of non-metallurgic art. Few facts, 
 therefore, related to this branch of the subject ^have im- 
 pressed me more than the essentially diverse types charac- 
 teristic of the massive and extremely rttuu implements of the 
 caves and river-drift. They seem to point to some unex- 
 phiined difference between the artificer of the Mammoth 
 or Keindeer period, and the tool-maker of Britain's neolithic 
 era, or the Indian sjivagij of modern times. 
 
 Sufficient correspond ence is traceable between the imple- 
 ments of the cave-earth and the river-drift to assign them 
 to the same era ; aud so to justify us in testing its arts by 
 their combined disclosurcB, The ossiferous cave of Ih'ixham, 
 wliich has recently been subjected to an exhaustive scientific 
 investigation, coiwists of ii series of galleries and passages 
 in the Dovonsbife limestoD*'. They arc partly natural 
 riHsure*' awd partly chamb<3rs hollowed out by the action of 
 running •.ater. Those havv? been refilled with gravel, red 
 • ave^jwrUi, ai>d layers of stalagmite, which were in pjocess 
 '•f deposition wl^ the nrmn^ apelwus, or great cave bear, 
 
 '!.,',iv>' 
 
1 
 
 m 
 
 iii 
 
 I 
 
 I! 
 
 ;1 l[ 
 
 mum 
 
 ; 
 
 W 
 
 m 
 
 m ! 
 
 til i'in|' ll 
 I III! 
 
 ill mill'" 
 
 ! I 
 
 66 
 
 BRIXHAM FLINT IMPFEMENT. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 still haunted their recesses, and whe. tlie reindeer was a 
 native of the neighbouring region. Though visited from 
 time to time by man, Brixham cave had never been made 
 his dwelling-place or workshop ; and so it has revealed only 
 his rudest tools. Of these, Fig. 4 is a characteristic example 
 of a rude lanceolate implement, which embodies within itself 
 some very significant glimpses of the era to which it belougy. 
 
 ' I Ln, 
 i i li I i Hi| 
 
 .ill,. ill: 
 
 iii'l I 
 
 I ! r ! 
 
 Fid. I -JJiixliinii C'av»i Flint Iiiniluniciil. (Kviiim.) j. 
 
 The great valleys were excavated and refilled with the 
 rolled gravel of the drift during the prolonged operations of 
 ice and floods. Hut it is Iicig seen that the violence of the 
 floodH cxtciidod evou to the re(;cm<s8 of the caves. The 
 impli'.ment has been l»rok<;n Into '.hrec pieces, evidently at 
 the period of the original filling up of the cave. One por- 
 
 till itV.': 
 
 i.i j; 
 
[chap. 
 
 ,11.] 
 
 FLINT RIDGE, OHIO, 
 
 67 
 
 was a 
 d from 
 n made 
 ed only 
 xample 
 in itself 
 aelougy. 
 
 Ltli the 
 bions of 
 
 of the 
 
 The 
 
 ^ntly at 
 
 ic por- 
 
 tion was recovered buried in the cave-earth of the flint- 
 knife gallery ; another fragment lay far apart, under three 
 and a half feet of earth, in a neighbouring gallery ; while a 
 third portion has escaped even the careful and discriminat- 
 ing search which resulted in the recovery of those long- 
 dissevered fragments. It has to be borne in remembrance 
 that every fragment of flint found in the cave-earth was 
 preserved, whether showing traces of human workmanship 
 or not. Thirty-two fragments were discovered in all ; 
 with an interval of nearly a month between the finding of 
 the first and second portions of the implement figured here. 
 A still longer period elapsed before it was noticed tliat tliey 
 fitted to each other as parts of the same worked flint. Most 
 of the fragments so found have undergone great alteration in 
 their structure, and have become absorbent and luittle. How 
 little chance, therefore, is there that any delicately formed 
 flint-tool should be recovered in the rolled gravel-beds ! 
 
 But the comparatively virgin soil of the New World has 
 examples of like primitive workmanship in reserve, to illus- 
 trate the significance of some of those amorphous flints 
 which bear the evidence of art, and yet seem almost too 
 artless for any purpose of man. The valleys of the Ohio 
 and its tributaries have a special attraction as the sites of 
 numerous earth-works and other remains of a prehistoric 
 race, known, from one prominent class of their structures, ;( 
 the Mound-Builders. In more recent tenturies, within tl\c 
 period of European intercourse with th(> New \\\>rld, the 
 same valleys have been occupied by warlike tribo« of the 
 Ked Indian race ; and now that an iudust\iovi« pv>pulatiou 
 has supplanted their ephemeral 'odg^vs with the cities and 
 farmsteads of the Anglo An\orieau wettler, tlic traces evou 
 of the latest aborigines soinu ])rinutivo us those of Europe's 
 neolithic era. During the Hunimer of IR'74 \ devottxl part 
 of the long vacation to an inspection of son\e of the wvoat 
 remarkable earth- works and other aricient ivn\5vius of thia 
 intei^jsting locality ; and among other objects illustrative oC 
 
 # 
 
68 
 
 FLINT PITS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 its past history, I visited the Flint Ridge, a siliceous deposit 
 of the carboniferous age, which extends through the State, 
 from Newark to New Lexington, and has been worked at 
 various points to furnish materials for native implements. 
 Here I had an opportunity of exploring the ancient pits 
 from which it is assumed that the constructors of the 
 gigantic earth-works of the neighbouring valleys procured 
 the flint, or horn-stone, of which their weapons and imple- 
 ments were chiefly made. The point visited is on the 
 summit of an undulating range of hills about ten miles 
 distant from the city of Newark and its remarkable earth- 
 works, hereafter described. At various points along the 
 ridge, both there and in other parts of the State, numerous 
 funnel- shaped pits occur, varying from four or five to fifteen 
 feet deep ; and similar traces of mining may bo soon in other 
 localities, as at Leveiiworth, nbo\it thiee hundrcMl miles below 
 (Hueiuuati, where tlio grey flint, or chert, Rbouuds, of which 
 large implomentd are chiefly made. I'he, sloping sides of 
 the pita are in many cases covered with the fraeiiuod Hints, 
 broken ii[), and partitdly shaped as if for purposes of manu- 
 faetuvo. There for the first time I looked upon true counter- 
 parts of the drift implements ; and in the courso of an ho^l* 
 Ul' two had no difficulty ii. procuring specimnIlN I'luHuly re- 
 peating many f( rms fymiliar among those common to tjio 
 cave-earth ujad the dnit-^avel of France and Ejiglaiid 
 
 We ai*c apt to tliink "f the old flint and stone-woikers ns 
 merely picking up the chance mia;terials saited to their 
 Mmpie craft, ikit the use of flint in the manufactujM iiC 
 siing-stones, siofr-kea^, a»«i othtsr missile wea,j)onH, as 
 well as of all ordinary houseiwid implements, and those of 
 w;ir and the chase, involved a couatant demaiid for fresh 
 mutc'rialfi-. frequ^iaJy procurable only from distant localities. 
 It \a wki^t might be mmmmn^ tii€Tefore, apaxt from any 
 direct evidence, that a pe|fakj system of qiUBijiiiig for flint 
 niMiules 1» dtted for the tool makers' art was pursued ; 
 aad that a tiads or hix\m m tbe raw irat^mi famished 
 
[chap. 
 
 I.I.] 
 
 DRIFT QUARRY DEPOSITS. 
 
 69 
 
 the 
 
 supplies to tribes remote from the flint-bearing chalk or 
 gravel. But also it appears from the interesting explora- 
 tions of Colonel A. Lane Fox at Cissbiy:y, near Worthing,^ 
 and from those of the Kev. W. Greenwell, at Grime's 
 Graves, near Brandon, in Norfolk,^ that the flint nodules 
 were not only quarried, but prepared on the spot ; so that 
 the miner carried off with him, not a mere load of flint 
 nodules, as the modern manufacturer might burden himself 
 with the iron ore : but flints of the required dimensions, 
 roughly shaped for the final operation which was to fashion 
 them into knives, scrapers, arrow and lane heads, hatchets, 
 etc. Precisely the same process is manifest in the remains 
 found in the pits of Flint Ridge, Ohio. Flakes or spawls, 
 knives, scrapers, almond and lanceolate blocks, abound in 
 the first crude stage of manufacture. In studying those on 
 the spot, J was strongly impressed by the similarity of many 
 of them to the ruder implements of the drift ; and hence 
 WHS led to surmise that in the latter also we have in many 
 cases, not the artless implements which fitly suggest a 
 iiiiikor GuiiuHpon<lingly fleficient in even such skill and 
 reiiBoning ns guides the modern tool making savage ; but 
 only ri|aejy-)uiJjii)|B(i (IIkM, fr^^sh from the quarry, and in 
 ft nopditiolj least susceptiblft m/* \t})iitY \ii tllfl violence to 
 willed llie tool-bearing gravels Iz/jVe /joffissarliy (/fetn si7b 
 \m\m]. Blfly it not be, jnoreover, that in soino ohl/o \>]i\v\ 
 de|K)S)tia (4 m\\\ wnii'"1 rijijfs ]U t//e gravels of Franco and 
 lilngliind, we have reuIJi lh' «J)h(»((|'^mi1 materials of such 
 c)iiiii'i'y iMM'uniiihiHons, and not the stray \m[i\ui\\i\\\i& fif \iul\ 
 vidua! huntuiH / j/i IIiIh way only can we eatisfactoiily 
 utmonnt fnp th^ M that bucIi traces of p/llnev/il nnin nh 
 U'iW Biicces&rully sought for on fnifely geological eviden<iOi 
 The orchnBologist digs into the Celtic or Hnnitfi fwfrow, atuf 
 llmls as his r(5wai'<l the iniphsnn'nts «//|rt IHiiitiff of Ui^ 
 builder. But English geologists, having df'tnr/nwn'j thn 
 character of llio too|-|)earing gravel of the French drjffc| 
 > AHhimihiilitf to), xjli. ).. OH. ■ Joiiin. mi'4- ftw. /V.J,, vfiJ. il. \>. 4I«. 
 
 
70 
 
 TRACES OF PALAEOLITHIC ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ill! 'I 
 
 have sought for flint implements in corresponding English 
 strata, as they would seek for the fosbil shells of the same 
 period, and with like success. They have now been ob- 
 tained in Suffolk, Bedford, Hartford, Kent, Middlesex, and 
 Surrey.^ So entirely indeed has the man of the drift passed 
 out of the province of the archaeologist, that in 1861 Pro- 
 fessor Prestwich followed up his " notes on further dis- 
 coveries of flint implements in beds of post-pleiocene gravel 
 and clay," with a list of forty-one localities where gravel 
 and clay-pits, or gravel-beds occur, as some of the places in 
 the south of England where he thought flint implements 
 might also by diligent search possibly be found, and sub- 
 sequent discoveries have confirmed his anticipations. 
 
 It has been felt by many as an element which in some 
 degree detracted from the otherwise incontrovertible force 
 of this accumulated proof, that here the wrought flints 
 are discovered in situ, they occur in beds of gravel and 
 clay abounding in unwrought flints in every stage of acci- 
 dental fracture, and including many which the most expe- 
 rienced archaeologist would h/^sitate whether to classify as 
 of natural or artificial origin. But on the assumption of 
 regular quarrying and working in the flint-bearing strata, 
 such traces of palaeolithic art may be expected to occur in 
 the river gravels, as a geological formation in which the 
 requisite material abounded ; and which, moreover, in its 
 latest reconstruction belongs to the river- valleys best adapted 
 to be the habitat of post-glacial man. They are, in fact, 
 the localities to which the experience of the archaeologist 
 would direct him when in search of the traces of rude 
 hunting and fishing tribes ; but also they are the same 
 mammaliferous strata to which the geologist turns when 
 looking for remains illustrative of the extinct fauna of the 
 post-glacial age. „„_^,.^.^;.ife^ -i--^-^----^ — i^^^^.-^- 
 
 In and around the pits of Flint Ridge, Ohio, are now to 
 be seen the accumulated results of centuries of mining 
 
 • 1 Journ. OeoU Soc, Lond., vol, xvii. ^jp. 322, .368 ; vol. xviii. p. 113, etc. 
 
1...] 
 
 LANCEOLATE FIJNTS. 
 
 71 
 
 jind quarrying, extending in all probability from the era 
 of the Mound-Bu Iders to the extinction of the Miamis, 
 Shawnees, and other recent occupan^'=^ of the Ohio valley. 
 Swept by floods into the lower valleys, the smaller frag- 
 ments would be broken up and disappear ; and only such 
 specimens would survive uncha iged as in the valley of the 
 Somme have startled archseolo^ists by their numbers ; and 
 tempted sceptics to assign their origin to a< idental frac- 
 
 
 Fid. O.-IjiiuToliitt' Flint, Flint Ilidge, Ohio. ii. 
 
 ture in the beds of gravel and unwrought flints in whicli 
 they chiefly occur. In Fig. 5 a worked flint is shown, picked 
 up in one of the pits on Flint Kidge, in Licking County, 
 Ohio. A small piece has been broken ofl" the point by 
 recent fracture. Its analogy to one familiar type of drift 
 implements can scarcely admit of question. This, it will be 
 remembered, had never been removed from the pit, and 
 doubtless represents the material thus roughly blocked out, 
 
 III 
 
 iU, i 
 
 ill 
 
^. 
 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 T 
 
 
 .*f^ 
 
 .%-^' 
 
 
 1.0 ^1^ tii 
 
 m 
 
 I.I 
 
 u 
 
 Ilk 
 
 Mtta 
 
 6" 
 
 ,^= Big, 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^.^p 
 
 
 V 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 4^ 
 
 4l^ 
 
 p 
 
 
 33 WUT MAIN tTRIIT 
 
 WntTli.N.V. MSM 
 
 (71*)l7a-4S03 
 
 

 .^^ 
 
 .^' 
 
I iiilt 
 
 iliilil 
 
 it P''>'i'>i' 
 iii 
 
 iJP 
 
 Mmm 
 
 mmmm 
 
 mm 
 
 .uimiliii: 
 
 iHllilHil jjl 
 
 7a 
 
 ALMOND-SHAPED FLINTS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 from which the old artificer designed to fiishion a finished 
 tool. Another common type is shown in Fig. 6, roughly 
 chipped into the crude form of an almond-shaped blade. 
 Some of the specimens acquired by me are weather-stained 
 from long exposure, and others discoloured and brittle ; but 
 many of them exhibit little traces of the effect of time. It 
 may be doubted, indee 1, if any of them can be regarded as 
 of remote antiquity; though, doubtless, the ancient Mound 
 
 Fia. 0.— Alinon(l-8hiiiin.l Flint, Flint Ri.lge, Olilo. f • 
 
 Jiuilders derived the materials for their stone implements 
 from this inexhaustible source ; and specimens of the same 
 class of worked flints arc frequently met with in the vicinity 
 of the mounds, and even among their contents. Flint flakes, 
 and rudely fashioned knives and scrapers, arc so common 
 in the ploughed fields, that they arc spoken of generally 
 throughout Ohio and Kentucky by the name of "spawls." 
 
[chap. 
 
 HI.] 
 
 THE SHAWNEE S. 
 
 n 
 
 It is difficult, indeed, to make a selection from the abundant 
 m..terials illustrative of this part of the subject. The supply 
 of flint, or its horn-stone and chert equivalents, was inex 
 haustible ; and its natural fracture and cleavage resulted in 
 forms which frequently required little labour to convert 
 them into useful household implements. The examples 
 thus far figured were obtained directly from the Flint Ridge 
 pits ; but equally characteristic specimens lie intermingled 
 with the finished axes and arrow-heads turned up by the 
 
 Fio. 7.- Lenf-slmpcd Flint, Bhnron Valley, Ohio. *• 
 
 ])lougli, or recovered from the mounds. In the example 
 figured liere (Fig. 7), from the original ploughed up in Sharon 
 Valley, Licking County, Ohio, in the vicinity of a largo 
 mound, the reader cannot fail to recognise an analogy to a 
 familiar class of miplemeuts of the drift. 
 
 The Shawuees, who last occupied the region now referred 
 to, were a numerous and warlike tribe, who according to 
 Indian tradition had come from Georgia and West Florida 
 into the Ohio Valley. But they became involved in the 
 
 
 V' ;''''•, 
 
'! 
 
 m\ 
 
 I :|l 
 
 t i i il 
 
 i!!!;' 
 iliii' 
 
 i' 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 THE COLORADO INDIANS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 French wars, joined in tlie famous conspiracy of Pontiac 
 in 1763, and were nearly exterminated in a battle fought 
 within two miles of the city of Newark. To them must, no 
 doubt, be ascribed many of the flint and stone implements 
 so abundant in the neighbouring valleys, as wel! as the par- 
 tially worked flints in the numerous pits along Flint Kidge. 
 But the material for the largest implements is here inex- 
 haustible ; and the natural lines of conchoidal fracture equally 
 controlled the workmanship of the Troglodyte of the Drift, 
 and the most recent Shawnee or Chippewa arrow-maker. 
 
 In the great mounds which abound throughout the region 
 watered by the Ohio and its tributaries, delicately-wrought 
 knives and arrow-heads, prized axe-heads, plummets and 
 hemispheres of haematite, elaborately carved pipes, and even 
 pins and bodkins of bone, lie buried along with the largest 
 lanceolate and oval-shaped flints ; or blocks of the same 
 mnterial, rough hewn, as brought from the pits. A general 
 and well-founded idea prevails that the old Mound- Builders, 
 and, in some cases also, the modern Indians, were in the 
 habit of making caches of flint-blocks, so as to protect the 
 material from exposure to the atmosphere. The modern 
 English gun-flint makers entertained the same idea, be- 
 lieving that a certain amount of moisture present in the flint 
 was necessary for working it with ease, and that it lost this 
 by long exposure. Professor J. W. Powell, in his report of 
 explorations of the Colorado of the West, made in 1873, 
 thus describes the method pursued by the Colorado Indians 
 in the manufacture of their stone implements: "Theob 
 sidian, or other stone of which the implement is to be made, 
 is first selected by breaking up larger masses of the rock, 
 and choosing those which exhibit the fracture desired, and 
 which are free of flaws; then these pieces are baked or 
 bieamed, perhaps I might say annealed, by placing them in 
 damp earth covered with a brisk fire for twenty four hours ; 
 then with sharp blows they are still further broken into 
 flakes approximating to the shape and size desired. For the 
 
 ii&fijiiii 
 
.,..] 
 
 CACHES OF WORKED FLINTS. 
 
 75 
 
 more complete fashioning of the implement* a tool of horn, 
 usually of the mountain sheep, but sometimes of the deer 
 or antelope, is used. The flake of stone is held in one hand, 
 placed on a little cushion made of untanned skin of some 
 animal, to protect the hand from the flakes which are to be 
 chipped off, and with a sudden pressure of the bone-tool the 
 proper shape is given. They acquire great skill in this, and 
 the art seems to be confined to but few persons, who manu- 
 facture them, and exchange them for other articles." ^ No 
 doubt some of the simple bone implements found in the 
 mounds were used for this purpose. I was shown recently, 
 in Cincinnati, some well-made arrow-heads, the work of 
 Dr. H. H. Hill, who informed me that his sole implement 
 was the bone handle of a tooth-brush. 
 
 Among the many interesting disclosures due to the re- 
 searches of Messrs. Squier and Davis, was the discovery in 
 a moi lid of " Clark's Work," one of the largest earthworks 
 in the Scioto Valley, of what may fairly be regarded as a 
 magazine of such flint-Wocks, fresh as from the quarry. 
 Many of them are half a foot in length, but they vary in 
 size and shape. Out of an excavation six feet long by four 
 wide, nearly six hundred were taken. They lay regularly 
 stacked, edge- ways, in two layers, one above the other ; and 
 the explorers estimated that the whole deposit might amount 
 to four thousand discs of hornstone, roughly prepared for 
 future manufacture. 
 
 Blocks of flint from ten to twelve inches in length, 
 fashioned in like manner into the nucleus of a lance or 
 spear-head, have occurred from time to time in Denmark, 
 France, and Belgium ; and arc to be looked for elsewhere : 
 since implements of flint are common in many localities 
 where the material out of which they are fashioned is 
 wholly unknown. Those are rightly conjectured to be the 
 raw material, which, like pig-iron, was thus ready to be 
 turned to the special uses of the artificer. No doubt, by 
 
 * Report of Krphrntiom of the Colorado of the Wf»t and its Tr'tbutnrlrs, p. 27. 
 
 !■ 
 
 
 ■ 1 
 
 I? 
 
 SI 
 
 t 
 
 11 
 
 til 
 
76 
 
 SEPULCHRAL DEPOSITS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I 
 
 barter and traffic in vftrious ways, such material for the 
 flint-workers of Europe's and America's different stone 
 periods was disseminated from centres where native flint 
 occurs ; just as in the later copper and bronze periods of 
 both continents the prized metals were diffused through 
 remote areas. But it is only in localities where the flint 
 abounds that implements, or even blocks or nuclei, of the 
 largest size are of common occurrence. Fig. 8 represents 
 one of the class of smaller rudely shaped flint implements 
 recovered from a large mound in the vicinity of Newark. 
 
 Pia. 8.— Flint Iinplemont, Licking County, Ohio. {. 
 
 It indicates, alike in the discoloration and the change of the 
 dulled surface, characteristic evidences of considerable an- 
 tiquity. Thus buried in the mounds, or scattered about 
 in the furrows of every ploughed field, slender flint- 
 chips, knives, or spawls, with arrow-heads, axes, and other 
 relics both of the Mound-Builders and their Indian suc- 
 cessors, abound. The huge rough-hewn block of flint or 
 hornstone takes its place as fittingly beside the delicately 
 finished implements, as the prized lump of unwrought 
 
III.] 
 
 CA VE- DRIFT DISCLOSURES. 
 
 77 
 
 lijBmatite, tlie large pyrula, or even the mass of copper or 
 galena. Possibly they were deposited in the sepulchral 
 mound to furnish to the dead the materials from which 
 to fashion implements adapted to the new life on which 
 he was about to enter. More probably, however, they were 
 laid there simply as part of the ordinary furnishings adapted 
 to the daily experiences of life. But if the Palaeolithic 
 tool-maker fashioned anything akin to the more delicate 
 implements, the vicissitudes of diluvial and other geological 
 changes have left few and partial illustrations of such 
 finished handiwork of the Drift-folk. Their cave dwellings 
 did indeed admit, under specially favouring circumstances, 
 of the occasional preservation of bone implements, the 
 smaller knives and lances of flint, and other comparatively 
 delicate objects used in indoor work ; and the value of these 
 as illustrations of the habits and usages of the ancient Trog- 
 lodytes can scarcely be exaggerated. But even those owe 
 their preservation to processes akin to that which fractured 
 and dispersed the fragments of the Brixham Cave imple- 
 ment ; and which, in the more violent rearrangement of 
 the river gravels, must have generally reduced any carved 
 bone or delicately worked flint to indistingu'shable frag- 
 ments. The exceptions indeed are exceedingly rare of 
 finding in the gravel beds a single bone of ai.y animal so 
 small as man. 
 
 The caves also undoubtedly embody in the contents of 
 their silt and stalagmite the industrial implements of a 
 later period than that of the river gravels ; and, as in the 
 case of Kent's Cavern, even preserve the evidence of a suc- 
 cession of occupants belonging to distinct eras, and probably 
 to essentially diverse races of men. But it is only in excep- 
 tional cases of special interest that the cave-drift discloses 
 traces of actual habitation, the refuse heaps of the kitchen, 
 the broken or stray tools, and even the flint- cores, hammer- 
 stones, and flint chips, which indicate the workshop of the 
 ancient tool-maker. Mr. Evans figures hammer stones of 
 
 ! 
 
 It 
 
78 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE ANALOGIES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 llW^st 
 
 iiij 
 
 in 
 
 Ii 
 
 1 
 
 i; : ! 
 
 \-\ . 
 
 1; ^i 
 
 1 
 
 various kinds, made of diverse pebbles and of chipped flint ; 
 and others from the French caves consist of tiint-cores with 
 the prominent surfaces worn round by their use as hammer- 
 stones in the process of chipping the flint into the desired 
 forms. One of this class of implements now in my posses- 
 sion, of light grey flint, and bearing manifest traces of long 
 use, was turned up in a ploughed field in Licking County, 
 Ohio. Another example in my collection was presented 
 to me by Mr. W. L. Merrin, who picked it up in the 
 vicinity of one of the pits on Flint Kidge, among the broken 
 flakes and nodules which showed where the old flint miner 
 had been at work. The cave deposits embedded animal 
 remains and human implements in part by the same pro 
 cesses which in neighbouring river valleys were burying 
 the works of man alongside of the bones of the largest 
 fossil mammalia. In the fo:''mer, at times, the silting up 
 was by a process sufliciently gentle to preserve un- 
 harmed the minuter traces of the c£,ve-dweller and his 
 arts; but as a rule there have remained to us from 
 that remote Palseotechnic era, only the larger and ruder 
 implements, corresponding as it were to the axe of the 
 woodman, and the mattock or plough of the field labourer, 
 which were alone capable of withstanding the violence of 
 floods, and the like elements of geological reconstruction. 
 
 Enough survives to us, from the disclosures of a diff'erent 
 character in the actual cave-dwellings of the Men of the 
 Drift, to confirm the idea that we have as yet obtained a 
 very partial glimpse of the arts of that icmote dawn ; and 
 that we may watch with interest every fresh disclosure cal- 
 culated to lessen the wonder excited by the large lanceolate 
 or ovate worked flints of that era : rude enough at times to 
 be ascribed to some irrational Caliban, rather than to a human 
 artificer. It may perhaps be thought t]i;tt I have yielded 
 too ready credence to a fanciful analogy ; but as I explored 
 the deserted flint pits of the Shawnees, and the ancient 
 quarry of the Ohio Mound-Builders, or picked up in the 
 
111.] 
 
 CINCINNATI COLLECTIONS. 
 
 n 
 
 furrows of their desecrated earthworks huge half-formed 
 ovate and spear-shaped blocks of hornstone akin to those 
 of the European drift, it seemed to me like a glimpse of 
 light illuminating the obscurity of that remote dawn. 
 
 The whole region of Ohio and Kentucky is rich in remains 
 of the old flint- workers. In the Granville, the Cherry, 
 Sharon, Hanover, and other valleys around Newark, in the 
 vicinity of Dayton, and at Fort Ancient, in Warren County, 
 Ohio, all of which I had special facilities for exploring, as 
 well as in numerous other localities ^.hroughout the State, 
 flint and stone implements abound. In Cincinnati I ex- 
 amined large collections, chicxly obtained by searching along 
 the bauk^ of the Ohio and its tributaries after the spring 
 floods. Occasionally fine specimens may be observed in 
 situ, projecting from the eroded bank, at a depth of about 
 twenty inches from the surface ; but the greater number are 
 picked up in the silt and gravel left by the falling river, 
 while many more must be buried in its bed : to form, per- 
 chance, a subject of study for future generations, in the 
 reconstructed river-valleys of a newer world. Their number 
 indeed is astonishing, in the contrast which the virgin soil of 
 the New World thus presents to the rare traces of Europe's 
 neolithic arts. One enthusiastic collector, Dr. Byrnes, of Cin- 
 cinnati, told me that his most successful gleaning had been 
 at a point near the junction of the Little Miami and Ohio 
 rivers, where in one day he found upwards of seventy stone 
 implements of various kinds, exposed by the ice and spring 
 floods, on the river banks. 
 
 Many of the flint implements are finished with exquisite 
 delicacy, to the finest serrated edge ; while, no doubt owing 
 to the abundant material, they are frequently on a scale 
 considerably surpassing those of the European neolithic 
 period. In the collections of Dr. Hill, Dr. Byrnes, and Mr. 
 Hosea, of Cincinnati, I made drawings of flint-knives, spear- 
 heads, and hoes, measuring nearly eleven inches in length. 
 Fig. 9 shows an example of the latter implement, reduced 
 
!il.l';*' 
 
 ~ ' ' ■ ■ t ..''! ■ - !■ " i 
 
 IIP Mil ' 
 
 if I'M 
 
 i i 
 
 i>l:il!i i: 
 
 4 1 Ml! 
 
 m 
 
 HORNSTONE SPEAR HEADS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 to one third, linear measure. It was found by Dr. iTill, 
 on the river edge of the Ohio, near Smithland, Kentucky, 
 and fully illustrates the character of the flint hoe. Ihe 
 broad end has been worked to an edge, and is fractured 
 
 from use ; while the narrow end 
 terminates in a flat unworked sur- 
 face, showing the natural texture 
 of the nodule from which it has 
 been made. The same collections 
 above referred to include spear- 
 heads of dark horn stone, from 6 J 
 to 7 inches long, of which upwards 
 of fifty were found on a farm in 
 Casey County, Kentucky. On 
 another farm in Jackson County, 
 Indiana, the owner's curiosity was 
 excited by the large size of two or 
 three spear-heads of dark grey 
 hornstone turned up by the plough ; 
 and on digging down he found 
 about ninety stacked edgeways, 
 one tier above another. Speci- 
 mens of them examined by me 
 in difierent collections measured 
 from i\ to 5 inches long. One 
 of the smallest of them is figured here full size, Fig. 1 0. Along 
 with some of these large spear-heads. Dr. Hill produced 
 several beautifully finished leaf-shaped blader, chipped to a 
 fine edge, measuring upwards of 5 inches long. They arc 
 worked in a pale grey hornstone speckled with white. 
 Twelve of these were ploughed up in a level between two 
 large mounds, near Brookville, Indiana ; and ten perfect, 
 \/ith numerous broken specimens of a rarer type of large 
 arrow-head, equally well finished, were found in the vicinity 
 of another mound, near Anderson's Fe:try a few miles below 
 Cincinnati. The number of such implements in this region 
 
 Fio. 9.— 1-Uut It 00, Kentucky. \. 
 
I.I.I 
 
 AMERICAN NEOLITHIC ART. 
 
 Si 
 
 
 Jong 
 
 luced 
 
 to a 
 
 T arc 
 
 ^hite. 
 
 two 
 
 rfect, 
 
 [large 
 
 jinity 
 
 lelow- 
 
 is astonishing ; and frequently the beauty of a piece of 
 milky quartz, yellow chert, or pure rock crystal, appears 
 to have stimuhited the workman to his utmost dexterity 
 in the manufacture of serrated, dentated, and elaborately 
 finished blades of various forms. 
 
 Fid. 10. —Flint Spear-liPnil, liidinna. \. 
 
 In the collections I have named, as well as in those 
 of Mr. Cleneay and Mr. James of Cincinnati, and of Mr. 
 Merrin and Mr. Shrock of Newark, the examples of flint 
 and stone implements numl)er many hundreds, and would 
 require a volume not less ample than Mr. John Evans's com- 
 prehensive monograph of The Ancient Stone Implements^ 
 
 VOL. T. F 
 
 :t 
 
 ' i; 
 
 .^1 
 
82 
 
 FLINT DRILLS. 
 
 [CHAI 
 
 ,|i ' 
 
 Wea'pon^, and Ornamcrds of Great Britain, to illustrate 
 their details. I shall limit myself here to a few examples 
 selected from among those peculiar to the neolithic art of 
 the New World which offer any suggestive hint relative tr» 
 the origin or use of objects already familiar to the archaeo- 
 logist. Perforated teeth of bears and other animals occur 
 among the mound relics ; shell-beads are still more abundant ; 
 bone and horn pins and lance -heads, and a peculiar class of 
 stone implements, most frequently made of a striated, grey 
 or blue shale, perforated with two or more holes, are all of 
 common occurrence. The chief varieties are shown in the 
 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Fig. 136, 
 p. 237. Some of them bear so near a resemblance to the 
 bracers, or guards, found in British graves, and supposed 
 to have been worn on the left arm to protect it from the 
 recoil of the string in the use of the bow, that I am inclined 
 to ascribe the same purpose to them. But others are curved 
 at the edges, and frequently of too large a size for this 
 purpose. The latter are also occasionally formed of copper. 
 One example of this class of implements, or personal decora- 
 tions, obtained from the Lockport mound, and now in the 
 possession of Mr. Merrin, measures 5*30 by 3*80 inches. 
 
 The frequent occurrence of drilled and perforated stone and 
 shell implements, tubes, pipes, etc., accounts for the finding 
 of a variety of awls, or drills, made of flint and stone. Not 
 only perforated shell-gorgets, stone tablets or guards, plum- 
 mets, and the like relics, but also beads, bears' teeth, and 
 other pendants or personal ornaments of various kinds, 
 have been found in the mounds. They correspond to some 
 extent to a class of perforated shell and bone implements 
 met with in the ancient cave deposits of France and Eng- 
 land ; and the flint awls or borers by which they were drilled 
 have been recognised among the rarer objects of the neo- 
 lithic period found in England, France, Denmark, and in 
 the Swiss Lake-dwellings.^ Figs. 11, 12 are good examples 
 
 ' Ancient Stone Implements of Orrat Britain, p. 289. 
 
HAP. 
 
 rate 
 
 rt of 
 
 JQ to 
 
 bseO" 
 
 )CCUl 
 
 lant ; 
 iss of 
 grey 
 all of 
 n the 
 , 136, 
 bo tlie 
 posed 
 m the 
 clined 
 iurved 
 )r this 
 opper. 
 ecora- 
 n the 
 
 i,..1 
 
 MODES OF PER FOR A TION. 
 
 Eng- 
 
 iri 
 
 iUed 
 
 of two types of such tools in use by the ancient flint- 
 workers of the Ohio Valley. Fig. 11 was found by its 
 present owner, Mr. James Pierce, near Mayville, Ken- 
 tucky. The square butt which forms the handle retains the 
 natural shape of the block of yeUow chert of which it is 
 made, while the chipped surfaces of the blade show the dark 
 grey colour of the core. Fig. 12 is a larger and ruder 
 example of the flint drill, from the collection of Dr. Hill, 
 of Cincinnati, probably designed to be attached to a 
 
 FiQ. 11.— Flint Awl, Miiyville, Kentucky. 
 
 Fio. 12.— Flint Drill, Cincinnati. 
 
 wooden haft, and used for operations on a larger scale. A 
 more carefully finished small flint- awl, with a neatly worked 
 handle, but unfortunately broken at the point, was pre- 
 sented to me by Mr. Merrin, of Newark, who picked it up 
 in a field in that vicinity. A drill of a diflferent kind is 
 shown in Fig. 13, also from the collection of Dr. Hill. 
 It is of diorite, and at the first glance might be taken for -a 
 stone arrow-head. But it is worn perfectly smooth along 
 
84 
 
 FLINT KNIVES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 its two edges, especially towards the point, evidently from 
 continuous use in the perforation of some hard substance, 
 such as mififht result in the hollowino; out of the bowl of 
 a stone pipe : though such an instrument would be called 
 into use in many operations of the old Hint-workers. 
 Knives and razors of diverse forms, and some of them 
 finished with great care, at times in very fantastic shapes, 
 are also c ' sequent occurrence. Their unusual shapes are 
 probably in part due to the chance fracture of the flint- 
 flakes, specimens -^f whicjh abound in the pits on Flint 
 
 Kio. i;i.-8toiio Drill, Clncinnntl. 
 
 Fin 14.- Flint Kiilfo, Cincliiiiiitl. 
 
 Ridge, frequently requiring little manipulation to convert 
 them into cutting implements. Fig. 14 is a small knife of 
 this class, selected from several in the collection of Dr. Hill. 
 It is made of yellow chert, and has a keen cutting edge. 
 But there is another class of flint-knives not unfamiliar to 
 European archaeologists, of which interesting examples occur. 
 A good American specimen of the flint-core, such as has 
 been found in Kent's Cavern, and elsewhere on nritisli 
 sites, and is common among the neolithic relics of Den- 
 mai'k, is now in my possession. It was picked up in the 
 
tri 
 
 „..] 
 
 RAZORS AND SCRAPERS. 
 
 85 
 
 Granville valley, Licking county, Ohio, not fur from the 
 famous Alligator Mound ; and shows the facets from which 
 long curved flakes have been struck oft'. The curved form 
 Avhicli the flake naturally assumes is fretj[uently retained in 
 the finished implements, along with three facets, form- 
 ing an acute triangular blade, coming to a sharp edge. 
 The Mexican obsidian is characterised by the same frac- 
 ture ; and some of the early Spanish writers enlarge on 
 the keenness of the edge of the obsidian razors, as scarcely 
 inferior to those of steel, though they speedily lose their 
 edge. A good example of the flint razor is shown in 
 Fig. 15, from the collection of Mr. James Pierce of May- 
 ville, Kentucky. It is one of the outer flakes of the core, 
 coming to a good edge on the one side, and chipped to a 
 broad back. Fitted with a wooden haft, it would form a 
 
 i''iu. 15. —Flint Uuzor, Kentucky. 
 
 convenient cutting implement for many purposes. It is 
 shown here nearly 5-Oths of the original size. The natural 
 cleavage of the flint, thus controlling the forms which the 
 fractured nodules assume, has tended to beget certain classes 
 of implements common to all the stone periods of which we 
 have any trace, from the palaeolithic era of the drift and 
 cave men to that of the flint- workers among savage tribes of 
 our own day. Horse-shoe, pear-shaped, oval, discoidal, and 
 other scrapers abound among the more familiar imple- 
 ments of the old American flint-workers, reproducing all 
 the forms common to the early stone periods of Europe, and 
 which have been minutely illustrated by Mr. Evans.^ But 
 there is another type of scraper, of a more finished character, 
 
 ' Ancient Slow. Implements 0/ Great Britain, pi\ 270-277. 
 
 it 
 
 
•ili.. 
 11.(11 
 
 86 
 
 ARROW-HEAD FORMS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 which frequently occurs among American flint implements, 
 of which I am not aware that any example has hitherto been 
 noted in Europe. In its more common form it might be mis- 
 tnLen at the first glance for a broken arrow-head. But the 
 repeated occurrence of examples of this type, with the well- 
 finished edge invariably inclining, with a curve, to the one 
 side, leaves no room for doubt as to its purpose as a scraper, 
 designed to be fastened to a haft, and used for fashioning 
 neeclles, bodkins, lance-heads, and other implements of ivory, 
 bone, or horn. This type is shown in Fig. 16, picked up 
 in the neighbourhood of Newark. Fig. ] 7 is another com 
 mon form, with the edge wrought to one side, but with 
 slighter curve, or inclination otherwise to the side. Both of 
 
 Fig. 16. 
 
 Fio. 17. 
 
 Flint Scrai)er8, Ohio. 
 
 these are figured the full size ; but many specimens occur of 
 larger sizes, and varying curves of the blade, from a long 
 horse-shoe to a broad crescent shape. There are olso 
 arrow-heads of analogous forms, but with no curve in the 
 blade. Similar arrow-heads are now made by the Blackfect 
 Indians out of iron hoops obtained from the Hudson Bay 
 fur traders, and it is said that with thofte a skilful marks- 
 man will behead a bird on the wing. Others of the rarer 
 ft' ms of flint implements include foliated, flamboyant, or 
 f itastically -shaped arrow-heads, and the like implements, of 
 which an example is shown in Fig. 18, and for which it is 
 diflicult to assign any specific use. Some of them, indeed, 
 look like the spoils of an ingenious workman tempted by 
 
I...] 
 
 DISCOIDAL STONES. 
 
 87 
 
 Fio. J8.— Foliated Arrow-lienil. 
 
 chance forms of the fractured ilint to try his hand at some 
 fanciful knife, arrow-head, or other implement of unwonted 
 design. ^-^^'•--■--:--"-/- "" ■■ ■":■ V'^v, ^ -^ -— - v^ ■:-.-.:/•. iv ■■■" 
 
 Discoidal stones, somewhat vc^rying in form and size, are 
 common in the valley of the Ohio, and throughout the 
 Southern States. Messrs. Squier and Davis figure two 
 examples found by them along with 
 an unusually rich deposit of choice 
 relics, including several coiled ser- 
 pents carved in stone, and carefully 
 enveloped in sheet mica and copper, 
 under a mound within the great earth- 
 work of Paints Creek. The discoidal 
 stones found there are made of a 
 very dense ferruginous stone, of a 
 dark brown ground interspersed with 
 specks of yellow mica. Others are 
 of granite, porphyry, jasper, green- 
 stone, and quartz, sometimes with concave surfaces, or 
 perforated with a funnel-shaped hollow on either side ; 
 but always of a hard stone, and highly polished. One 
 fine specimen in the collection of Dr. Byrnes is of 
 polished novaculite, and another of quartz. The largest 
 are about six inches in diameter, and art generally finished 
 with great symmetry. There is no doubt that such im- 
 plements were employed among the Southern Indians, 
 subsequent to their being visited by Europeans, in certain 
 favourite games. Adair describes their use ; and adds that 
 they were so highly valued " that they were kept with the 
 strictest religious care from one generation to another ; and 
 were exempted from being buried with the dead." It 
 may l)e that in some of them wo have implements used in 
 the gnnies which formed a prominent part in the sacred 
 festivities, for wliich it is aasunied that the great geometrical 
 earthworks were constructetl. Indeed the perfect symmr'try 
 of form in the majority of this class of relics seems to 
 
 s 1 
 
 t-i 
 
 h \ 
 
 4S i ■ 
 
 in 
 
 
 III 
 
 ,1,; ^ 
 tfc" i 
 
 V?- '■ 
 %^ i 
 
 i r 
 
88 
 
 SINKERS AND LASSO-STONES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 accord wich the idea of their having been fashioned by the 
 race who have left such gigantic memorials of their regard 
 for geometrical configuration. One perforated discoid al 
 stone, of polished granite, which I examined at Cincinnati, 
 was dug up by Dr. J. H. Hunt, within a large earthwork at 
 Cleves, near the great Miami Kiver; and another in the 
 possession of Dr. Byrnes was found in the vicinity of one 
 of the great mounds on the Ohio. < 
 
 Among the rarer stone implements which occur among 
 the relics of Europe's neolithic arts are certain objects 
 which, though of small size, otherwise so closely resemble 
 the most highly finished mining hammers that they have 
 been generally designated hammer-stones. A more careful 
 and discriminating study of them, however, has led to the 
 assignment of them to a totally different purpose. An 
 example found near Ambleside, Westmoreland, and figured 
 in the Archceological Journal,^ shows a well-finished ovoid 
 implement of stone, with a deep groove round the middle. 
 Others have been repeatedly found in the neighbourhood of 
 the English lakes, as well as in other localities ; and as they 
 show no traces of being battered or worn from use in ham- 
 mering, and are frequently made of sandstone or other 
 material unsuited for such a purpose, they are now generally 
 regarded as sinkers for nets or fishing lines. Objects of 
 nearly similar form, but most frequently made of diorite, 
 granite, or other equally hard rocks, occur among the 
 stone implements of the Ohio Valley. Many of them 
 measure from 3 to 4 inches long. But while in them also 
 the absence of any marks of abrasion or battering serves to 
 show that they were not used as hammers, a hard and heavy 
 material appears to have been preferred in their coi?struc- 
 tion. Hence it has been surmised that they were the 
 weights attached to a hunting thong, or lasso ; though they 
 would equally serve as sinkors for the fisherman's nets. 
 One of them, from a mound in Kentucky, is shown in 
 
 • Archaol. Jouni., vol. x. p. 64. 
 
111.] 
 
 CUPPED STONES. 
 
 89 
 
 Fig. 19. It is of granite, and carefully finished, but a hard 
 siliceous concretion at one end has resisted the efforts of the 
 workman to reduce it to perfect symmetry. * The attempt 
 to determine the uses for which implfmeuts were made, 
 under circumstances so wholly different from everything 
 v/e are familiar with, is at best guesswork. But it seems 
 unlikely that so much labour and skill would be expended 
 in fashioning such intractable material into symmetrical 
 shape for a mere net-sinker. In the collection of Mr. 
 Merrin is a large implement of the same form, weighing 
 fully eighteen pounds. It was found on the site of the 
 Lockport Mound, at Newark, along with numerous other 
 stone, shell, mica, and copper relics. Its size and weight at 
 
 Fig. 10. — LasBO atone, Keutucky. 
 
 once suggest the idea of its use as a miner's maul ; but it is 
 made of sandstone, and retains no traces of use as a hammer. 
 It is equally inapplicable for the hunter's lasso and the 
 fisher's net ; and if designed for a weight, must have been 
 for some very different ;)urposo. 
 
 Among various novel relics of the Ohio Valley which 
 attracted my notice from their resemblance to others familiar 
 to European archaeologists, was a class of cupped stones, 
 very abundant in many localities. In 180 7 Sir James Y. 
 Simpsoi. published an elaborate and nearly exhaustive dis- 
 quisition on ** Airchaic stones and rocks in Scotland, Eng- 
 land, and other countries;" and about the same time 
 Algernon, Duke of Northumberland, undertook the illustra- 
 
 
 If 
 
90 
 
 ARCH^OLOGICAL THEORIES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ISK 
 
 tion of the same class of relics in his own district. The 
 work was projected on a large scale, and did not appear 
 till after his death, when a large imperial folio was produced, 
 entitled ^^ Incised Markings on Stone found in the County of 
 Northumhe^iandj Argyleshire, dc." The simplest types of 
 this clasp of archaic sculpturings consist of rounded depres- 
 sions, or "cups," formed in the surface of rocks and standing- 
 stones, and varying from 1 to 3 inches in diameter. Those 
 are scattered irregularly over the surface. But another 
 class has the cups surrounded by concentric rings, and with 
 lines leading from one group to another, with so much 
 apparent system as to have suggested the idea of their 
 being specimens of primitive chorography, not unlike the 
 delineations which I have seen made by an Indian on a bit 
 of birch-bark, in order to indicate the geography of a 
 locality. They have, in fact, been supposed to be maps, 
 whether of the Celtic Britons, or of some older people, and 
 to represent the chief towns, or intrenched strongholds, and 
 neighbouring villages or encampments, with the roads lead- 
 ing from one to another. But while the cup-like hollows 
 constitute their main features, the accompanying linear 
 marks vary sufficiently to afford antiquarian fancy and 
 conjecture ample scope in assigning their origi i or use. 
 They have accordingly been described as Phoenician, Druid- 
 ical, Mithraic ; as originating in the worship of Baal, or of 
 the Persian Sun-god ; as the blood- focuses of Druid altars ; 
 emblems of female Lingam worship ; Sabean astrono- 
 mical devices ; or as in some way or other recognisable as 
 possessing a sacred or religious character. 
 
 Attention had not been long directed to the cup sculp- 
 turings in Britain, when Professor Nilsson reported their 
 occurrence on Scandinavian standing-stones; Dr. Keller 
 recognised their presence on the rocks and boulders of 
 Switzcilaud ; and now it appears that they arc no less 
 common in Ohio and Kentu(;ky, and extend southward into 
 Georgia and other states of the Uulf Fig. 20 represents a 
 
[chap. 
 
 . The 
 appear 
 ►duced, 
 unty of 
 )^pes of 
 depres- 
 tnding- 
 Those 
 mother 
 id with 
 much 
 if their 
 ike the 
 n a bit 
 ^ of a 
 5 maps, 
 )le, and 
 ds, and 
 Is lead- 
 oUows 
 linear 
 y and 
 T use. 
 iDruid- 
 or of 
 Itars ; 
 itrono- 
 ,ble as 
 
 [sculp - 
 
 their 
 
 l^eller 
 
 )rs of 
 
 less 
 
 U into 
 
 3nts a 
 
 ....] 
 
 GEORGIA BOULDERS. 
 
 91 
 
 cupped sandstone block on the banks of the Ohio, a little 
 below Cincinnati. Others, much larger, were described to 
 me by Dr. Hill. One above Mayville has thirty- nine cups, 
 and another, close to the river's bank, eighty of the same 
 characteristic hollows, with other linear and circular carv- 
 ings. Mr. Charles C. Jones figures, in his Antiquities of 
 the Southern Indians, a sculptured boulder of fine grained 
 granite in Forsyth county, Georgia, which in more than one 
 respect is the precise counterpart of ancient British ring and 
 cup sculpturings. Like the cap-stone of the Bonnington 
 
 Pio. 20.— Cuppcd-stone, Oliio. 
 
 Cromlech, the Old Bewick block described by Sir J. Y. 
 Simpson, and the Lancressc Cromlech in the Channel 
 Islands : the Georgia boulder has a row of cups, or drilled 
 holes, running along one side, while its surface is indented 
 with cup-like hollows fi'om a half to three quarters of an 
 inch deep, with concentric rings and connecting lines closely 
 resembling the sculpturings on some of tlie ancient Scottisli 
 stones. In Georgia they are nssumed to be the work of the 
 Chcrokees ; but Mr. Jones adds : ** No interpretation t *" these 
 figures has been offered, nor is it known by whom or for 
 
 1^1 
 
 ;:l-l 
 
92 
 
 HAND CUP-STONES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 what puipose they were made."^ But besides the hirge rock 
 sculptures, numerous small stones occur in the ploughed 
 fields with similar cups wrought in them. They are mostly 
 of rough-grained sandstone, frequently with several holes 
 irregularly disposed on more than one surface ; and closely 
 corresponding to examples figured by Dr. Keller, some of 
 which were procured from the lake-dwellings of Neuchatel. 
 I gathered several specimens, and could have obtained many 
 more on Ohio farms, including both the smoothly hollowed 
 cups, from one to two and a half inches in diameter, and 
 those where the hollow is roughly picked out, or only 
 partially worn into a smoothly rounded cup. Some of 
 those examples were found in neighbouring fields, while 
 engaged in excavating the Evans Mound, in Sharon Valley, 
 near Newark, where also I obtained both polished axes and 
 mullers. The cupped stones were of a coarse-grained sand 
 stone, with the depressions occurring irregularly on both 
 sides, and occasionally so close as to run into each other. 
 Into these the rounded ends of the stone axes and pestles 
 fitted, and the two classes of objects seemed complements of 
 each other. Here was the roughly picked hollow, gradually 
 worn into a smooth rounded depression, in the process, as I 
 conceive, of grinding the ends of stone axes, maize-cmshers, 
 pestles, and the like implements, some of which fitted exactly 
 into the cups. As the hollow gradually wore too large, a 
 new one was made. The edges of the smaller cup-stones 
 also frequently show evidence of their use in grinding down 
 the surfaces of such stone implements. Such, however, is 
 not the theory which finds favour in the Ohio Valley. There 
 the hickory, or native walnut, abounds, with its hard shell, 
 defying all ordinary efforts to reach the tempting kernel. 
 But the boys have learned to hunt up a cupped stone, and 
 placing the nut in its hollow, it is fractured at a blow with 
 another stone, and its contents secured. Hence such 
 objects are called nut stones ; and Mr. C. C. Jones, in his 
 
 1 Aniiqnilm of the Southern Indians, p. 37S. 
 
HI.] 
 
 NEOLITHIC GRINDSTONES. 
 
 93 
 
 Antiquities of the Southern Indians, has adopted both the 
 nnme and the idea implied in it, in spite of the occurrence 
 of the same cups or depressions on rocks and boulders alto- 
 gether inapplicable for such a purpose.^ 
 
 Whatever may have been the purpose of the cupped 
 stones, tliey were not unknown to the ancient Mound- 
 Builders. Messrs. Squier and Davis state that " in opening 
 one of the mounds, a block of compact sandstone was dis- 
 covered, in which vvere several circular depressions, in all 
 respects reseml)ling those in the work-blocks of copper- 
 
 Fio. 21. — Cuiipel jiouliler, Troiiton, Oliio. 
 
 smiths, in whicli plates of metal are hammered to give them 
 convexity." These accordingly they suppose to have been 
 the moulds in which the copper bosses and discs were formed, 
 of which numerous cxami^les have been obtained from the 
 mounds. 
 
 A highly characteristic example of wliat may not inaptly 
 be styled a neolitliic grindstone was found near Tronton, 
 Ohio, in the summer of 1874. It is a large sandstouci 
 boulder, as shown in Fig. 21, covered witli cui)a, or pits ; 
 
 ' Anlu/idtiea of the Southern Indiana, pp. 315 320. 
 
 :». 
 

 ■V) 
 
 94 
 
 ARCHAEOLOGICAL ENIGMAS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 «• 
 
 and also, as will be seen, with long gi'ooves, which suffice to 
 prove its use as a stone for shaping and polishing tools. 
 This adds confirmation to the probable origin of the cups 
 from a like cause. Since I drew attention to the subject, 
 I have been informed of the discovery of numerous similarly 
 indented and grooved rocks along the shores of the Ohio 
 river, including some of the hard granite, or liaurentian 
 boulders. But gritty sandstone rocks appear to have been 
 preferred. 
 
 The supposition that the cups on large boulders and small 
 sandstone grinders may alike be referred to the manipu- 
 lations of the stone tool-maker, leaves the more elaborate 
 accompaniments of concentric rings and linear devices un- 
 accounted for ; though it seems to me less improbable that 
 these additions — which are thus found among other traces of 
 the Cherokees and Shawnees of the new world, as well as 
 amid the remains of Europe's prehistoric races. — may be no 
 more than supplements of an idle fancy added to the hollows 
 which originated in the needful grinding of flint and stone 
 implements into their required forms, than that they are 
 mysterious religious symbols. Yet there is a fascination in 
 the idea that they are "archaeological enigmas :" Phoenician, 
 Mithraic, Sabean, or Druidical ; " lapidary hieroglyphics and 
 symbols," as Sir J. Y. Simpson assumes, " the key to whose 
 mysterious import has been lost, and probably may never 
 be regained."^ "They are," he again says, "too decidedly 
 * things of the past ' for even the most traditional of human 
 races to have retained the slightest recollection of them ;" 
 and, as in his attempt to determine the race to which to 
 refer them he follows up the glimpses of their occurrence 
 beyond the British Isles, he asks : ** Are they common in 
 countries which the Celtic race never reached ? still more, 
 are they to be found in the lands of the Lap, Finlander, or 
 Basque, which apparently neither the Celt nor any other 
 Aryan ever occupied ? Do they appear in Asia within the 
 
 * Archaic Sculpturinga, p. 92. 
 
n..] 
 
 ANCIENT ANALOGIES. 
 
 95 
 
 II 
 
 bounds of the Aryan or Semitic races ? Or can they be 
 traced in Africa, or in any localities belonging to the 
 Hamitic branches of mankind ? Do they exist upon the 
 stones or rocks of America or Polynesia?"^ If my theory 
 is correct, they may be looked for in all. It is with tender 
 memories of a dearly valued friend that I render the response, 
 that such sculptured cups do exist upon the stones and rocks 
 of America, and amply justify the reference of those of the 
 Old World to Europe's neolithic age, when the men of its 
 polished stone period were grinding and working into per- 
 fected form the most prized relics of their laborious art. 
 
 The explanation thus derived from the traces of America's 
 native savage arts, in possible elucidation of a class of 
 archaic European sculptures which have been made the 
 subject of such learned speculation anel research, may seem 
 too artless to be substituted for theories of religious sym- 
 bolism or rites of worship. But the ancient evidences 
 of artistic labour in either hemisphere accord with the idea 
 that man's earliest arts were of the most practical kind. He 
 did, indeed, find leisure to ornament the tools designed for 
 common uses ; and gave play to his imitative faculty in 
 drawings and carvings which answered no other end than 
 the pleasure the draughtsman in all ages has derived from 
 the manifestation of his skill in the arts. But the grafting 
 of recondite theories of symbolism and ritualistic devices 
 either on such delineations, or on the simpler evidences of his 
 handiwork, is apt to lead us astray into fanciful and pro- 
 fitless speculations, wholly apart from the true significance 
 of such traces of primitive mechanical ingenuity as reveal 
 the presence of man even on the skirts of ancient glaciers, 
 and among the drift-gravels, of Europe's post-pleiocene 
 dawn. __..._.. ,. 
 
 1 Ihid. p. 147. 
 
96 
 
 BONE AND IVORY WORKERS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BONE AND IV^ORY WORKERS. 
 
 lii 
 
 BOXR AND IVORY WORKERS— SUBSTITUTES FOR FtJNT— PROOFS OF RELATIVE AC!K - 
 DOMESTIC BONE IMPLEMENTS— RUDE PALVROLITHIC ART— WHALEBONE WORKERS 
 -PRIMITIVE WORKINO TOOLS— FISH-SPEAHS AND HARPOONS —ARTISTIC IN- 
 fiENUITV— DRAWING OF THE MAMMOTH— THE MADELAINE ETCHINGS— RIOHT- 
 HANDKO WORKERS— DEERHORN QUARRY PICKS— BONE-BRACER OR GUARD — 
 BIRTHTIME OF THE FINE-ARTS — INNUIT CARVERS OF ALASKA -TROGLODYTES OF 
 CENTRAL FRANCE— POST-GLACIAL MAN -SYMMETRICAL HEAD FORM -INTELLEC- 
 TUAL VIGOUR— EVIDENCE OF LATENT POWERS— TAW ATIN IVORY 'iARVINO— LAKE- 
 nWELLERS' IMPLEMENTS -CAVE IMPLEMENTS— ARTS OF THE PACIFICISLAVDERS 
 — CARIB SHELL-KNIVES— ABORIGINES OF THE ANTILLES— CARIBS OF ST. DOMINGO 
 —CAVE PICTURES AND CARVINGS— PRIZED TROPICAL SHELI-S — ANCIENT GRAVES 
 OF TENNESSEE— SHELL MANUFACTURES- HURON AND PETUN GRAVES— SACRED 
 SHELL-VESSELS— PRIMITIVE SHELL ORNAMENTS— AMERICAN SHELL MOUNDS— A 
 SHELL CURRENCY— lOQUA STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 The nearest type which we can now conceive of to the 
 Drift-Folk of Europe's post-glacial era is the Esquimaux. 
 It is even possible that, like them, they may have occu- 
 pied winter snow-huts ; and only retreated to their cave- 
 dwellings during the brief heat of a semi-arctic summer. 
 Among a people so situated the industrial arts are called 
 into utmost requisition, alike for clothing and tools; and 
 the simplest experience of the hunter directs him to the 
 produce of the chase for the most easy supply of both. 
 The pointed horn of the deer furnishes the ready made dag- 
 ger, lance-head, and harpoon ; the incisor tooth of the larger 
 rodents supplies a more delicately edged chisel than primi- 
 tive art could devise ; and the very process of fracturing 
 the l}ones of the larger mammalia in order to obtain the 
 prized marrow, produces the splinters and pointed fragments 
 
IV.] 
 
 SUBSTITUTES FOR FLINT 
 
 97 
 
 which an easy manipulation converts into bodkins, hair-pins, 
 and needles. The ivory of walrus, narwhal, or elephant is 
 more readily wrought into many desirable forms, and is less 
 liable to fracture, than the intractable flint or stone ; and 
 all those materials are abundant in the most rigorous winters, 
 when flint nnd stone are sealed up under the frozen soil. 
 Tools and weapons of bone and ivory may therefore be 
 assumed to have preceded all but the rudest stone imple- 
 ments ; and although, owing to the indestructible nature of 
 their material, it is from the latter that our ideas of earliest 
 post-glacial art are chiefly derived, enough has been found 
 in contemporary cave-deposits to confirm this inference 
 from the analogous hyperborean arts of our own day. 
 
 Flint, indeed, though so widely used as the primitive 
 tool-maker's material, is unknown in many localities. We 
 are familiar with regions at the present time, where man 
 not only subsists, but supplies himself with implements and 
 weapons adapted to his need, though neither flint nor stone 
 is available. This fact has been practically ignored in the 
 accepted terminology of the science. As now reduced to 
 system, it proceeds in retrospective order thus : — Historic, 
 prehistoric, neolithic, palaeolithic, with a possible protolithic 
 period of still older geological epochs. An awkward mis- 
 nomer inevitably results from this assumption of stone as 
 the sole basis of primitive art : as where the archaeologist 
 speaks of palaeolithic bone implements, or neolithic pottery. 
 I have therefore substituted here the more comprehensive 
 terms palaeotechnic and neotechnic. They suffice equally for 
 the classification of implements and personal ornaments of 
 flint, stone, bone, ivory, or even of metal : as in the neotechnic 
 gold and bronze work ; and also for those made from marine 
 shells. Many of the latter have been recovered under circum- 
 stances which establish their claim to be classed with other 
 examples of primitive art ; and even find illustration among 
 the rarer disclosures of the ancient cave-drift. In the great 
 Archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, as well aa in widely 
 
 VOL. 1. G 
 
 i % 
 
 !| 
 
98 
 
 PROOFS OF RELATIVE AGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, the primeval stage of 
 native art might indeed be more correctly designated a shell 
 period ; for until their discovery by Europeans, the large shelb 
 which the moUusca of the neighbouring oceans produce in 
 great abundance, furnished to the native artificers the most 
 convenient and easily wrought material. For the natives of 
 the coral islands of the Pacific especially, marine shells sup- 
 plied the want not only of copper and iron, but of flint 
 and stone ; and left them at little disadvantage when com- 
 pared, for example, with the Indians of the copper regions 
 of Lake Superior. : 
 
 Alike in the ivory and bone carvings of the modern 
 Esquimaux, and in the rare but invaluable evidences of pri- 
 mitive art furnished by those of the ancient Cave-Folk of the 
 Dordogne and other oldest human dwellings, it is seen how 
 favourable such easily wrought material was to the develop- 
 ment of a mechanical skill and artistic ingenuity such as must 
 have lain dormant had the primitive artificers been wholly 
 liniited to flint and stone. The same result is traceable, 
 though in a less degree, to the analogous material of the 
 Islanders' shell-period. But implements and ornaments made 
 of marine shells have a further interest from the evidence 
 they occasionally afford of distant traffic, or interchange of 
 foreign commodities. 
 
 Tools of horn, bone, and ivory possess a value of another 
 kind. With them, as on a common ground, the palaeonto- 
 logist and the archceologist meet and determine the relative 
 ages of the primitive artist and his materials. In the Gla- 
 morganshire cavern at Paviland Dr. Buckland found the 
 skull of a mammoth, or other fossil proboscidian, and beside 
 it the remains of cylindrical rods and armlets made from its 
 ivory. In the famous Aurignac cave, on the northern slope 
 of the Pyrenees, were arrows and other implements of rein- 
 deer horn, a bodkin fashioned out of the horn of the roedeer, 
 and a tusk of the ursus spelceus, perforated and carved in 
 imitation of the head of a bird. The Dordogne caves in 
 
,v.] 
 
 DOMESTIC BONE IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 99 
 
 like manner reveal the natives of Southern France in its old 
 post-glacial era, hunting the aurochs and reindeer, and 
 fashioning their horns and bones into lances, bodkins, needles, 
 clubs, ceremonial or official batons, and other implements of 
 varied purpose and design. Among the "prehistoric re- 
 mains of Caithness," which rewarded the explorations of 
 Mr. Samuel Lainfj in the mounds at Keiss, were numerous 
 
 ■^&: 
 
 "W \ 
 
 If- 
 
 Fio. 22— BoneSpfttida, 
 Keiss. 
 
 Fio. 23 —IJono Comb, Biirglmr 
 
 Fio 24. BonoComli, 
 liurglmr. 
 
 implements made from the horns and bones of the reindeer, 
 red-deer, ox, horse, and whale. Some of them are of the 
 rudest character ; and all indicate a condition of life akiii to 
 that of the tribes of the Labrador, or the Alaska coast at 
 the present day. Fig. 22 is a spatula roughly formed from 
 the bone of an ox ; unless, as Mr. Joseph Anderson has sug- 
 gested, it be the fii'st stage in the process of fabricating a 
 comb, of the type shown in Figs. 23, 24. The latter, found 
 
■f#6 
 
 RUDE PAL A OLITHIC ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 at Burghar, in Orkney, is a precise counterpart of the long- 
 handled combs still in use by the Esquimaux for separating 
 the sinew threads, which supply them "rith one important 
 resource in making their clothing. Those relics point to times 
 when the fauna differed even more than the men of this era 
 from those of the present day. In tht mounds of the Ohio 
 Valley, on the other hand, the bone implements and animal 
 remains appear to be referable to existing species ; and ^ o 
 supply evidence in contradiction of the extrem antiquity 
 assigned by some to the mounds and their builders. One 
 special value of primitive tools of horn, bone, and ivory is 
 thus manifest. They embody glimpses of truth in relation to 
 climate, native fauna, culinary practices, and special objects 
 of the chase ; and to this easily worked material we owe 
 disclosures of an aesthetic faculty, and of artistic capabilities 
 pertaining to the Troglodytes of the Dordogne, to whom, 
 but for such evidence, might, and probably would have been 
 assigned a rank in humanity as far below the standard of the 
 modern savage as the Patagonian or Australian falls short 
 of that of the average European of our own day. 
 
 The artificial origin of many of the rudest of the worked 
 drift-flints has been challenged. But of the human work- 
 manship of the large flint implement found alongside of the 
 bones of a fossil elephant in the quaternary gravels of the 
 London basin, near Gray's Inn Lane ; or of the spear-heads 
 which lay under similar fossil bones in the drift of the valley 
 of the Waveney, at Hoxne, in Suffolk, no doubt has ever been 
 suggested. Both were discovered upwards of a century before 
 the idea of man's contemporaneous existence with the mam- 
 mals of the drift had been mooted ; but if such specimens 
 of his art are to be made the sole test of human capacity in 
 that primeval era, they might justify the idea of some lower 
 type even than the wretched Patagonian or Australian. 
 But contemporary cave deposits check our conclusions from 
 such partial evidence; and suggest that in those rudest 
 specimens of {^oleeolithic art we have only the most inde- 
 
IV.] 
 
 WHALEBONE WORKERS. 
 
 loi 
 
 stnictible relics of an epoch by no means destitute of inven- 
 tive ingenuity or artistic skill. t 
 All the cave deposits referred to were accompanied with 
 human remains. In the Glamorganshire Cavern a female 
 skeleton lay in close proximity to the skull of the fossil 
 elephas, embedded in a mass of argillaceous loam. Adapt- 
 ing his deductions to the ruling idea which then guided the 
 author of the ReliquicB Diluviance, Dr. Buckland refers to 
 the cylindrical rods and rings of ivory as " made from part 
 of the antediluvian tusks that lay in the same cave ; and," 
 he adds, ** as they must have been cut t? their present shape 
 at a time when the ivory was hard, and not crumbling to 
 pieces as it is at present on the slightest touch, we may from 
 this circumstance assume to them a high antiquity." Dr. 
 Buckland's idea of the antiquity implied by such cave remains 
 was veiy different from what is now universally accepted. 
 But it is not to be overlooked that here, as in the Aurignac, 
 and other sepulchral caverns, the interment may belong to 
 an epoch long subsequent to that of the fossil mammals. 
 The tusk of a mammoth from the Carse of Falkirk, now in 
 detached pieces in the museum of the University of Edin- 
 burgh, was rescued from the lathe of an ivory-turner ; and 
 the fossil ivory of Siberia is a regular c*:ticle of commerce. 
 ■ But in other examples of a like character we are left in no 
 doubt. The deer's horn harpoons of the whalers of Blair- 
 Drummond Moss are unquestionably contemporaneous, with 
 the fossil whales ; and although the implements are rude 
 enough, they will class with harpoons and fish-spears hero 
 described, some of which have been found associated 
 with works in bono and ivory of great ingenuity and skill. 
 The Greenland whale undoubtedly haunted the northern 
 shores of Scotland within historic times. Its bones occur 
 in Scottish brochs and kitchen-middens ; and among the 
 many traces of prehistoric arts and habits of life disclosed 
 by the contents of the Scottish subterranean dwellings, 
 one of the moat interesting is a largo drinkuig-cup fashioned 
 
 f 
 
 nil 
 
^t 
 
 PRIMITIVE WORKING TOOLS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ■■■' :'\ 
 
 from the vertebra of a whale. It was found in a weem 
 on the Isle of Eday, in Orkney, along with a bone scoop, 
 bone pins, combs, and other primitive relics, including 
 some of metal. The cup measures 4j inches high ; and, 
 as shown in Fig. 25, is a very simple adaptation of the 
 
 natural form of the bone by saw- 
 ing off the protruding spinous 
 processes. 
 
 The ancient workman had his 
 knife, saw, adze, chisel, drill, 
 and scraper, — or plane, as we 
 may term it, — all made of flint. 
 I'he worn and triturated edges 
 of many of those flint-tools show 
 abundant evidence of their use in 
 fashioning some hard substance. 
 He had also his file, made of 
 grit -stone ; of which various 
 examples have been found in 
 the caves. Tliey are generally styled whetstones ; but their 
 purpose was probably the very same as that of a modern 
 file. Some are of coarse-grained stone, and others of a finer 
 grit. Without some such tools it would have been impos- 
 sible to bring the more elaborate implements of bone and 
 ivory to the state of finish which they present. Among 
 BU<^h, the harpoons and fish-spears furnish a variety of types, 
 diversified by the ingenuity of the workman, and the neces- 
 sities of his craft. Examples of such primitive fishing 
 implements of widely different eras are here grouped to- 
 gether. The three-pronged fish-spear, Fig. 26, illustrates 
 the art of the Esquimaux fisherman : that living race of 
 Arctic seas, which alike in arts and in condition of life, 
 realises for us in so many ways the men of Europe's post- 
 glacial age. Alongside of it are a hook, or spear-heavi of 
 deer's-horn, Fig. 27, and a barbed fish-spear of the same 
 material. Fig. 28, both the work of the ancient Lakc- 
 
 Fio. 26.— Whale's Vertebra Cup. 
 
IV.] 
 
 FISH-SPEARS AND HARPOONS. 
 
 103 
 
 dwellers of NeuchAtel. They present interesting analogies 
 to the most familiar types of bone or ivory fish-spears of 
 the French and English post-glacial era, of which Figs. 29, 
 30 are examples from the Dordogne Caves. Fig. 31, though 
 worn and fractured, illustrates a form of the cave harpoon- 
 blade, barbed only on one side. It is from Kent's Cavern, 
 where other, though less perfect, examples have been found. 
 One of these, figured by Mr. Evans,^ is specially noticeable 
 for its curved form. Similar implements have repeatedly 
 occurred in the cave-deposits, as in those of the Dordogne, 
 
 Fio. 26. 
 
 Fio. 27. 
 
 Pio. 29. 
 
 Fia. 80, 
 
 Fia. 28. 
 
 and at Bruniquel, where also serrat' 1 Hints or saws were 
 found in unusual abundance. Fig. 36, from the cave of 
 La Madelaine, is a good example of the unilateral fish-spear, 
 much superior in workmanship to the similar implement of 
 the modem Fuegian, shown in Fig. 33, and well adapted 
 to the wants of a river-fisherman. But the form of the 
 Kent's Cavern type rather suggests that it was c .. of 
 the blades of a large two-pronged, or three-pronged 
 spear, similar to examples still in use among the Es- 
 
 '^ Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, Fig. 405, p. 460. 
 
 ii 
 
 111 
 
 .■J . 
 
 ■ [ 
 I I 
 
• }■- : •■3 , : 
 
 il 
 
 J.'' ^'^ 
 
 104 
 
 FISH-SPEARS AND HARPOONS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 quimaux : of which one, now in the museum of the Uni- 
 versity of Toronto, shown in Fig. 26, illustrates the pro- 
 bable design of the curved blades. In the caves of the 
 Dordogne and Garonne valleys repeated discoveries of bone 
 needles, in association with the barbed fish-spear, have been 
 noted. They are objects of delicate manipulation, the value 
 of which is proved by the occurrence of examples accidentally 
 broken, and drilled with a new eye. The caves of the Dor- 
 dogne pertained, even in the remote era of the mammoth or 
 reindeer periodic, to a race of inland hunters and fishermen 
 to whom such a harpoon would have been cumbrous, if not 
 
 Fio. 81.— Harpoon, Koiit'H Cavern. 
 
 Pig. 82.— Boue Spearhead, Dordogne Caves. 
 
 Fio. 33.— Fuegiim Harpoon, 
 
 wholly unsuited to their requirements. But the Kent's 
 Hole Troglodyte had probably more formidable prey to en- 
 counter, and so adapted the implements of the chase to his 
 special requirements. Of the bilateral barbed fish-spear, a 
 good, though imperfect example is shown, the natura] size, in 
 Fig. 32, from Laugerie Basse, in the Dordogne. Another, 
 Fig. 34, was found imbedded iu the red cave-earth of 
 Kent's Cavern, underneath a bed of black eai-th, containing 
 flint-flakes and bones of extinct mammals, over which the 
 stalagmitic flooring had accumulated to a thickness of a 
 foot and a half. Similar implements have been recovered 
 
 
,v.] 
 
 ARTISTIC INGENUITY. 
 
 105 
 
 from other Dordogne Caves. Fig. 35, from La Madelaine, 
 is a variation of the latter type, in which the barbs are dis- 
 posed alternately on either side. 
 
 It is alike interesting &nd highly suggestive of the char- 
 acteristics of man as a rational being, thus to find his in- 
 genuity, when stimulated by similar necessities, begetting 
 closely analogous results in ages separated by intervals so 
 vast that we vainly strive to measure them by any standards 
 of historical chronology. But the ingenuity manifested in 
 the construction of his fishing and hunting gear very in- 
 adequately reveals to us the aptitudes of the men of the 
 
 Fio. 34.— Fish-speur, Keut'H Cavern. 
 
 ^ ^^,- J.J-U.-i„L 
 
 Fio. 36.— Fish-spear with bilateral barbs, La Madelaine. 
 
 ^ Fio. 86.— Flflh-spear with unilateral barbs, La Madelaine. 
 
 drift or the cave periods. In those remote epochs, as now, 
 man was an intelligent being, gratifying his taste in many 
 ways by works often involving great labour, and leading to 
 no other practical results than many labours of the carver 
 and house-decorator, the painter, sculptor, and engraver of 
 our own day. Among the works of art, for example, of the 
 cave men of the Dordogne, contemporary with the mammoth 
 and the reindeer of Central France, voxious incised draw- 
 ings of animals, executed both on bone and slate, apparently 
 with a flint stylus or graver, have excited an unusual 
 interest. They include representations of the fossil horse, 
 as on a carved baton, or mace, Fig. 37 ; of the reindeer, 
 in groups, and engaged in . combat ; of the ox, fish 
 
 i 
 

 Ml 
 
 J'^a* 
 
 io6 
 
 Z>/?A WING OF THE MAMMOTH. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 of different kinds, flowers, ornamental patterns, and some 
 ruder attempts at the human form. Carvings ^'n bone 
 and ivory illustrate the same ingenious mimetic art. 
 But the most remarkable of all is the portraiture of 
 the mammoth. Fig. 38, outlined on a plate of ivory, and 
 to all appearance drawn from the life. It represents the 
 extinct elephant, sketched with great freedom and even 
 artistic skill ; and not only compares favourably with the 
 best specimens of modern savage delineation, but exhibits 
 so much freedom of handling as to look more like the sketch 
 of an artist skilled in the use of his pencil. I can recall no 
 example of savage art exhibiting such freedom ; and none 
 
 Fio. 37.— Carved Baton, or Mace (reduced to a third). 
 
 but an experienced draughtsman could execute with pencil 
 or etching-needle anything approaching to the expression 
 and character given by means of a few lines, executed with 
 no laboured effort, but evidently dashed off by one who 
 had full confidence in his powers. ^ 
 
 This most ancient example of imitative art was found in 
 the Madelaine Cave, on the river V^z^re, by M. Lartet, 
 when in company with M. Verneuil and Dr. Falconer. The 
 circumstances of the discovery, therefore, no less than the 
 character of the explorers, place its genuineness beyond 
 suspicion. Its worth is great as a piece of contemporary 
 portraiture of an animal known to us only by its fossil 
 remains. But this sinks into insignificance in comparison 
 with its value as a gauge of the intellectual capacity of the 
 
IV.] 
 
 THE MADELAINE ETCHINGS. 
 
 107 
 
 pry 
 
 )ssil 
 
 Ison 
 
 the 
 
 men of the reindeer age of central Europe. Many of their 
 carvings ornament the horn or ivory handles of implements 
 and weapons ; but the etching referred to was manifestly 
 executed with no other aim than the gratification of the 
 artistic taste of the draughtsman, and resembles the free 
 sketches thrown off by an artist in an idle hour. 
 
 But there is another point worthy of notice here, the 
 interest of which is greatly increasod by the undoubted 
 antiquity of the relic. This palseographic tablet is a right- 
 handed drawing ; and the same may be affirmed of the 
 group of reindeer, and of others of the Madelaine etchings. 
 They are executed in profile, looking to the left, as any 
 
 Fig. 38.— Tlie Mammoth, engraved on ivory. 
 
 right-handed draughtsman naturally does, unless he has 
 some special reason for deviating from the direction which 
 the facility of his pencil suggests. 
 
 The question of right-handedness, as a natural or acquired 
 practice peculiar to man, has a special interest when viewed 
 in relation to his innate instincts or attributes in the remote 
 dawn of human intelligence thus anew brought to light. 
 The universality of right-handedness as a characteristic of 
 man has been assumed, partly on the concurrent evidence 
 of language, w^hich shows the general habit of using one 
 hand in preference to another. But the prevalence of the 
 use of the right hand among savage nations is still a mere 
 assumption. The statistics have yet to be collected, and are 
 
 I 
 
 
io8 
 
 RIGHT-HANDED WORKERS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ': r -it 
 
 ft'. 
 
 J 
 
 
 by no means readily accessible. Any evidence of the pre- 
 valence of right-handedness among a people still in the primi- 
 tive stage of stone implements must be exceedingly vague. 
 In the rude manipulations of a purely savage life, with the 
 imperfection of the tools and the general absence of com- 
 bined operations, the distinction in the use of one hand 
 rather than the other is of little importance. In digging 
 roots, climbing rocks or trees, in the rude operations of the 
 primitive boat-maker or hut-builder, in hunting, flaying, 
 cooking, or most other of the operations pertainuig not only 
 to the hunter, but even to the pastoral stage, there is little 
 manifest motive for the use of one hand more than the other; 
 and on the supposition of either becoming more generally 
 serviceable, it would neither attract notice, nor interfere in 
 any degree with the arts of life, though some gave a preference 
 to the right hand, and others to the left. Hence the diffi- 
 culty of determining the prevalence of right-handedness 
 among savage nations. Its manifestations in the rude arts 
 of the isolated workman are obscure, and any uniformity of 
 action becomes apparent only in those combined operations 
 which are comparatively rare in savage life. Yet even in 
 the languages of the Hawaians, I'ijiaus, Maories and Aus- 
 tralians, terms are met with showing the preferential use of 
 one hand. In the rudest state of society, man as a tool- 
 using animal has this habit engendered in him ; and as he 
 progresses in civilisation, and improves on his first rude 
 weapons and implements, there must arise an inevitable 
 tendency to give the preference to one hand over the other, 
 not only in combined action, but from the necessity of 
 adapting certain tools to the hand.^ 
 
 An interesting episode relating to this assumed speciality 
 of man is introduced in a communication by the Rev. W. 
 GreenweU to the Ethnological Society of London, on the 
 opening of some ancient Norfolk flint-pits, popularly known 
 
 ^ For a detailed diBcv.3<iou of this subject in its general bearings, vide *' Righir 
 handednata," Canadian Journal, N.S., vol. xiii. p. 193. ' 
 
IV.] 
 
 DEERHORN QUARRY PICKS. 
 
 tog 
 
 as " Grime's Graves." In these v^ere found not only imple- 
 ments of flint, a hatchet of basalt, hammers, stones of qiiartz- 
 ite and other pebbles, and numerous chippings and cores of 
 flint, along with a bone pin, and another implement of bone 
 which Mr. Greenwell supposes to have been used in detach- 
 ing the flakes of flint for knives and arrow-heads ; but also a 
 number of primitive deer-horn picks, which had been used 
 by the ancient quarrymen by whom the flint was thus pro- 
 cured, and fashioned into tools. 
 
 The picks made from the antlers of the red deer were 
 constructed simply by detaching the horn at a distance of 
 al)0ut sixi-een or seventeen inches from the brow end, and 
 then breaking off" all but the large brow-tine, with the help 
 of fire and rude cutting implements of flint. They had been 
 used both as picks and hammers, the point of the brow- 
 tine serving for a pick, and the broad flat part opposite to 
 it as a hammer for breaking ofi" and detaching the flint from 
 the chalk ; while excavations through the solid chalk were 
 effected by means of hatchets of basalt. The marks of both 
 tools were abundant on the walls of the galleries ; and many 
 of the rude picks, including the two specially referred to, 
 were coated with an incrustation of chalk, bearing the 
 impress of the workmen's fingers. Here, as in the Brixham 
 cavern, an accident, which brought the ancient operations 
 to an abrupt close, sealed up the evidence of them beyond 
 reach of all obscuring interpolations, until their discovery in 
 recent years. In clearing out one of the subterranean 
 galleries excavated in the chalk, it was found that " the roof 
 had given way about the middle of the gallery, and blocked 
 up the whole width of it. On removing this, it was seen 
 that the flint had been worked out in three places at the 
 end, forming three hollows, extending beyond the chalk face 
 of the end of the gallery." In front of two of these hollows 
 lay two picks, corresponding to others found in various 
 parts of the shafts and galleries, made from the antler of the 
 red deer. But in this case the writer notes that the handle 
 

 no 
 
 BONE BRACEk or GUARD. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 of each was laid towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines, 
 which formed the blades of the tools, pointing towards each 
 other, " showing, in all probaoility, that they had been used 
 respectively by a right and a left-handed man. The day's 
 work over, the men had laid down each his tool, ready for 
 the next day's work ; meanwhile the roof had fallen in, and 
 the picks had never been recovered," until their reproduc- 
 tion in evidence of the supposed habits of the right and 
 left-handed workmen, by whom they were employed at the 
 close of that last day's labour, in the prehistoric dawn.^ 
 
 Mr. Evans, in discussing the use of certain perforated 
 plates of stone frequently found in British graves, adopts 
 the idea that they were bracers, or guards, to protect the 
 left arm of the archer against the recoil of the string in 
 shooting with the bow. But, he adds, " unless there was 
 some error in observation, plates of this kind have been 
 occasionally found on the right arm;" and he refers to a 
 skeleton observed by Lord Londesborough, on the opening 
 of a chambered barrow ut Driffield, the bones of the right 
 arm of which were laid in a very singular and beautiful 
 armlet, made of some large animal's bone, set with two 
 gold-headed bronze pins or rivets, most probably to attach 
 it to a strap which passed round the arm, and was secured 
 by a small bronze buckle found underneath the bones. This 
 also Mr. Eva 3 supposes to have been the bracer, or guard 
 of an archer , and he adds, " possibly this ancient warrior 
 was left-handed." A Scottish example, from a large tumulus 
 on the shore of Broadford Bay, 
 Isle of Skye, is here shown, 
 Fig. 39. These plates, or 
 guards, are most frequently 
 made of a close-grained green 
 chlorite slate ; and in various 
 cases flint arrow-heads have been noted among other con- 
 tents of the same grave. But the cist in which the supposed 
 
 * Joum. Ethnol. Soc, N.S., vol. ii. p. 419. 
 
 Pia. 39.— Scottish Stone Bracer. 
 
IV.] 
 
 BIRTHTIME OF THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 on- 
 sed 
 
 left-handed warrior lay contained a bronze dagger, some 
 large amber beads, and a drinking- cup ; but no arrow-heads 
 to confirm the idea that he had been laid to rest with his bow 
 beside him, and the guard ready braced on his arm, like one of 
 the seven hundred left-handed Benjamites, every one of 
 whom could sling stones at a hair's breadth, and not miss. 
 Posdbly the novel and richly finished armlet occupied its 
 proper place on the right arm as a personal decoration suite 1 
 to the rank of the wearer. •' v S K v ?, v k: > 
 
 But bronze pins and daggers carr}' us into kiter times 
 tlian those of the Troglodytes of the Dordogne. Ancient 
 though the Driffield, barrow unquestionably is according to 
 ordinary chronology, it is a very recent sepulchre compared 
 with the catacombs of the French reindeer period, the draw- 
 ings from which undoubtedly suggest the right -handedness 
 of the draughtsmen who used the stylus and graver so dex- 
 terously in that birthtime of the fine arts in transalpine 
 Europe. .-::-.--.-v-ii-' " 
 
 But similar traces of primitive art, assigned to a still 
 earlier epoch, have been recently reported fi:om the vicinity 
 of the Dardanelles. Mr. Frank Calvert describes the dis- 
 covery of numerous stone implements, some of them of large 
 size, and much worn, imbedded in drift two or three hun- 
 dred feet thick, underlying stratified rocks, as he believes, of 
 the miocene period. Flint implements are rare, and the 
 most common material is red or other coloured jasper. 
 Among fossil bones, teeth, and shells from the same forma- 
 tion, remains of the Dinotherium, and the shell of a species 
 of Melania pertaining to the miocene epoch, have been 
 identified ; and Mr. Calvert writes to the Levant Herald : — 
 "From the face of a cliff" composed of strata of that period, 
 at a geological depth of 800 feet, I have myself extracted a 
 fragment of the joint of a bone of either a dinotherium or a 
 mastodon, on the convex side of which is deeply incised the 
 unmistakable figure of a horned quadruped, with arched 
 neck, lozenge-shaped chest, long body, straight forelegs, and 
 
112 
 
 JNNUIT CARVERS OF ALASKA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 broad feet. There are also traces of seven or eight othoi 
 figures, which, together with the hind quarters of the first, 
 are nearly obliterated. The whole design encircles the 
 exterior portion of the fragment, which measures nine inches 
 in diameter, and five in thickness. I have also found, not 
 ^ar from the site of the engraved bone, in diflferent parts of 
 the same cliff, a flint flake, and some bones of animals frac- 
 tured longitudinally, obviously by the hand of man, for the 
 purpose of extracting the marrow, according to the practice 
 of all primitive races."^ 
 
 These traces of primitive art Mr. Calvert recognises as 
 "conclusive proofs of the existence of man during the 
 miocene period of the tertiary age." They at least furnish 
 additional illustrations of his intellectual activity, however 
 remote the antiquity to which he is traced ; and show the 
 same ideas of comparison which enter so largely, not only 
 into modern artistic design, but into much of the rhetoric 
 and poetry of later times. 
 
 Among living races the Innuit of Alaska, within three 
 degrees of Behring's Strait, are skilful carvers in ivory. 
 They chiefly use the teeth of the Beluga, a small white 
 whale common in their seas, and from this they c rve 
 birds, fish, seals, deer, and other animals, as well as bod- 
 kins, needles, awls, and other implements, with consider- 
 able skill. They obtain the walrus tusks in barter from 
 more northern tribes; and from those they make fish- 
 spears, harpoons, and other larger implements. They also 
 amuse themselves with graving, on plates of bone or ivory, 
 dances, hunting-scenes, and other familiar incidents. Of 
 the latter, Mr. W. H. Dall remarks, in his int resting nar- 
 rative of Alaska and its Resources: "These drawings are 
 analogous to those discovered in Franco, in the caves of 
 Dordogne."* They are so, in so far as both are attempts 
 at representing contemporary animal life by untutored 
 
 1 Athenatum, April 6, 1873. 
 
 ' Almhaw'l Uh Hesourcet, p. 237. 
 
IV.] 
 
 TROGLODYTES OF CENTRAL FRANCE. 
 
 "3 
 
 man ; but the accompanying illustrations of Innuit art 
 show how greatly the work of the modern savage draughts- 
 man falls short of that of the artist of the Mammoth epoch 
 of Europe. 
 
 Fortunately our knowledge of the men of that remote era 
 is supplemented by evidence of a still more direct kind. 
 In 1868 the construction of a railroad led to the removal 
 of an extensive talus on the left bank of the river V^z^re, 
 at Cro-Magnon, exposing a cave, or shallow recess in the 
 face of the rock, within which were found a succession of 
 strata, with traces of the action of fire, and including flint 
 scrapers, bone bodkina, arrow-points, and other implements, 
 along with bones of the Elephas prinii<jenius, Felts spelcea, 
 the reindeer, fossil-horse, and ivory tablets and tynes of 
 deerhorn, marked with a series of notches, supposed to be 
 hunters' tallies recording the produce of the chase. One of 
 the latter, interesting as an illustration of these earliest efforts 
 at numerical notation, is shown in Fig. 40. But most valu- 
 
 rory, 
 Of 
 
 Pi«. 40.— Hunter's Tally Deorshoni. 
 
 able of all were the human skeletons, including those of an 
 old man, a woman, and portions of others of two young 
 men, and a child. Beside them lay nearly three hundred 
 marine shells, chiefly the Littorina littorea, some perforated 
 teeth, and — as if to determine the era of the Troglodytes of 
 Cro-Magnon, — several implements made of reindeer horn. 
 
 Evidence of a similar kind accumulates with the in- 
 terest which it has excited. To the south of the Alps the 
 caverns of Baouss6 Rouss6 have yielded a singularly rich 
 series of implements and personal ornaments of flint, ivory, 
 bone, and shell ; and more important than all, a nearly per- 
 fect human skeleton, brought to light in the Mentone 
 Cave, with the skull still decorated with its ornamental 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 B 
 
114 
 
 POST- GLA CTA L MAN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 »'N 
 
 
 ii ■:ft? 
 
 head-gear of perforated sliells (Cyclonassa neritea) and 
 canine teeth of the Gervus elaphus, originally strung, as is 
 supposed, on a net for the hair. Across the forehead lay a 
 large bone hair pin, made of the radius of a stag, with the 
 natural condyle retained as its head.^ The correspondence 
 between the Mentone skull and those of Cro-Magnon is 
 considerable. Already, therefore, sufficient remains of the 
 
 Km. 41.— SkullofOMManofCro-Miigiiou Pmnio. 
 
 ancient cave dwellers have been recovered to ol,. * ns to 
 f<n*iu Home definite idea of their physical charncterisi r i. 
 
 The Cro Magnon men nnd women are largo of stature. 
 Their skulls, like that of the Mentone Cave, are of it 
 dolichocephalic type, and so far accord with the Esqui- 
 maux, rather than with any Turanian head-form. But it is 
 important to note that in no other respect do they yield 
 the slightest countenance to the theory favoured by some, 
 that the cave-men of pjdtuolithic Europe bore an affinity to 
 the Esquimaux, and that in the latter we have the living 
 
 • DPmuwrte. iVun Hqnvlkttv humain de l\'poqiui l\il('i>lUhi<jHe ilunt lea caven^es 
 ilea liaoHM^ iiimm\ par Kiuilo Riviere, p. 31. 
 
.v.] 
 
 S YMMETRTCA L HE A D-FORM. 
 
 "5 
 
 representatives of post-glacial, if not still older man. If 
 indeed the Cro-Magnon and Mentoue skulls are, as they 
 have been assumed to be, those of contemporaries of the 
 mammoth and reindeer of Southern Europe, Dr. Pruner-Bey 
 remarks of the race : " If we consider that its three in- 
 dividuals had a cranial capacity much superior to the 
 average at the present day ; that one of them was a female, 
 and that female crania are generally below the average of 
 male crania in size ; and that nevertheless the cranial 
 
 Fio. 42. 
 Skull of Old Mini of Cro-Mngiioii— Front View. 
 
 Fio. 4:). 
 Skull of Oltl Miiu of L'ro-.Mngnou -Vortionl View. 
 
 capacity of the Cro-Magnon woman surpasses the average 
 capacity of male skulls of to-day, we arc led to rigard the 
 great size of the brain as one of the more remarkable 
 characters of the Cro-Magnon race. This cerebral volume 
 seems to me even to exceed that with which at the present 
 day a stature equal to that of our cave-folks would be asso- 
 ciated : whether the skulls from the Belgium caves are 
 small, not only absolutely, but even relatively in the rather 
 small stature of the inhabitants of those caves."^ Along 
 
 ^ Itelhiuhv Aijuiliiiiiav. VII. Acaount of Uio liuuxui Itunes found in the oave 
 of Cr«i.Mai»non in Donlogno, by \h\ I*rinu'i-- IVy. 
 
 
ii6 
 
 INTELLECTUAL VIGOUR. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 with this ample cerebral development, the general form of 
 the head is graceful and symmetrical. Alike in the Gro- 
 Magnon and Mentone examples the total absence of pro 
 gnathism is noted. An expressive, though strongly marked 
 orthognathic profile with ample forehead, prominent nose, 
 moderately developed superciliary ridges and maxillaries, 
 and a well-formed chin, all compare favourably, not only 
 with the foremost savage races, but with many civilised 
 nations of modern times. 
 
 Of the age of those Troglodytes of France, M. Lartet 
 remarks : " The presence of the remains of an enormous 
 bear, of the mammoth, of the great cave-lion, of the rein- 
 deer, the spermophile, etc., in the hearth-beds, strengthens 
 in every way the estimation of their antiquity ; and this 
 can be rendered still more rigorously, if we base our argu- 
 ment on the predominance of the horse here, in comparison 
 with the reindeer, on the form of the worked flints, and of 
 the bone arrow and dart-heads." * This argument, however, 
 overlooks the possibility of the interments long after the 
 accumulation of the hearth- beds with their included relics. 
 Assuming this cavern period of Central France as the later 
 subdivision of the palaeolithic age of Europe, its drawings 
 and carvings represent the arts of a remote era, compared 
 even with the polished stone-hammers and chipped flints 
 contemporary with the oldest implements of bronze. It is 
 obvious, therefore, that a comparison between the rude 
 worked flints of the cave-men of Southern France, and the 
 highly finished stone implements of the bronze period of 
 Northern Europe, is no true gauge of any intermediate pro- 
 gress or development. The artist to whose pencil or 
 graving-tool we owe the only authentic portraiture of the 
 mammoth, unquestionably possessed skill and intellectual 
 vigour adequate to the production of any stone implement 
 or personal ornament pertaining to the arts of Western 
 Europe at the commencement of its metallurgic period. 
 
 ' Hi'liqula AquUanieo'. M. Louis I^ftrtet, p. 70. 
 
IV.] 
 
 EVIDENCE OF LATENT POWERS. 
 
 117 
 
 111 truth it is far easier to produce evidences of deterioration 
 than of progress, in instituting a comparison between the 
 contemporaries of the mammoth, and later prehistoric races 
 of Europe, or savage nations of modern centuries. They 
 had advanced, as M. Paul Broca says, " to the very thresh- 
 old of civilisation." They possessed arts, industry, and 
 apparently such a degree of social organisation as their ex- 
 ternal circumstances admitted of. But then, as at many 
 subsequent periods, the elements of progress were arrested 
 at this stage, and the whole work of civilisation had to be 
 begun anew. 
 
 A careful study of the native arts of the American con- 
 tinent, in subsequent chapters, will bring under our notice 
 the intellectual efforts of man in a purely savage state, and 
 so help to a determination of what is implied in certain par- 
 tial manifestations of mimetic design. This is the true cor- 
 rective of any tendency to an undue estimate of the general 
 progress implied by such evidence. It will be seen that a 
 rare aptitude is shown among certain tribes for mimetic 
 drawing and carving; yet it is of limited application, and 
 accompanied by little superiority to surrounding tribes in 
 the employment of the arts for the general requirements of 
 savage life. Even in such cases, however, it is an evidence 
 of latent powers, capable of development under favourable 
 circumstances. The Esquimaux have been stimulated by 
 the necessities of Arctic life to great ingenuity in the fashion- 
 ing of their weapons, and in all other appliances of the 
 chase, on which their very existence depends ; but they are 
 skilful, as a savage people, in the ornamental, as well as 
 the useful arts. Their skin and fur dresses are fashioned 
 and decorated with great taste ; and many of their ivory 
 and bono implements are beautifully carved. There is in 
 the Museum of the University of Toronto a set of Esqui- 
 maux children's toys, including miniature men, dogs, sledges, 
 and objects of the chase, all carved in ivory witli ingenious 
 skill. The Thlinkets of Alaska, lying on the borders of tho 
 
ii8 
 
 TA WATIN IVOR V CAR VING. 
 
 [chap 
 
 
 true Esquimaux region, make ladles and spooiis from the 
 horns of the deer, the mountain sheep, and the goat, which 
 are special objects of the chase, and carve them with ela 
 borate ingenuity. Grotesque masks of wood, paddles, knife 
 handles of bone, bodkins, combs, and other personal orna- 
 ments, chiefly of walrus ivory, are all carved with great 
 variety of design, though scarcely in a style of high art. 
 
 Among the tribes lying immediately to the south, the 
 Tawatin Indians of British Columbia specially excel in ivory 
 carving. Their personal ornaments are lavishly decorated ; 
 and many of their carvings resemble in so far the mammoth 
 portraiture of the Madelaine artist, that they are simply 
 eff'orts of skill, having no other end in view than the plea- 
 
 Flo. 44.— Tftwiitia Ivory Curving of Wlmlo. 
 
 sure derived from their execution. It will be seen, however, 
 in the conventional representation of the whale, as shown in 
 Fig. 44, how far they fall short of the ancient workers in 
 ivory in literal truthfulness of delineation. In one respect 
 indeed this piece of Tawatin carving recalls a characteristic 
 of early Christian art. Trifling as the correspondence is, 
 it is curious tlius to find the modern Indian carver of the 
 Pacific coast giving to the monster of the deep the same 
 bt^rbed tongue which forms the conventional attribute of the 
 dragons and leviathans of medieval Europe. But it is 
 greatly more interesting to note, not only the thoroughly 
 native style of art of their more elaborate carvings ; but to 
 recognise in many of them certain traits which recall 
 
IV.] 
 
 LAKE-DWELLERS IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 X19 
 
 same 
 fthe 
 it is 
 
 ghiy 
 
 it to 
 ecall 
 
 characteristics of the finished sculptures on the ruins of 
 Central America and Yucatan. This is strikingly shown in 
 another of their carvings, Fig. 45, where some of the points 
 of resemblance help to confirm other traces, hereafter indi- 
 cated on difi'erent grounds, of early intercourse, if not of a 
 common relationship, between savage tribes of the North- 
 West, and ancient civilised nations of Central America and 
 the Mexican plateau. 
 
 In times still prehistoric, th>mgh apparently recent in 
 comparison with the mammcth or reindeer period of France, 
 the works of the ancient Lake-dwellers of Switzerland 'fur- 
 nish illustrations of the application of horn, bone, and ivory 
 to many useful purposes for which the metals are now con- 
 
 " Fm. 45. — Tftwatin Ivory carving. ' ' 
 
 sidered as alone suitable. The site of the pfahlbautcn at 
 Concise, ou Lake Neuch^tel, has been peculiarly rich in the 
 illustrations it has yielded of implements in flint, stone, 
 l)one, horn, and also in bronze. The skulls, horns, and bones, 
 both of domesticated animals, and of those procured in the 
 chase, are also abuiuhmt ; and among the latter, the red 
 deer and the wild boar fippear to have predominated as 
 articles of food. ^__ 
 
 The Natural History Museum of Cambridge, Massachu- 
 setts, which owes its existence to the indefatigable zeal of 
 the lamented Professor Agassiz, is enriched by a collection 
 of remains of the ancient (Swiss Lake dwellers, obtained 
 under peculiarly favourable circumstances. The lather of 
 
133 
 
 CA VE IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the distinguished naturalist was for a period of fifteen years 
 the clergyman of Concise ; and it chanced that the son 
 revisited his native canton at a time when the construction 
 of a railway viaduct across part of the neighbouring lake led 
 to the discovery of numerous trace s of its ancient popula- 
 tion. He was accordingly able to secure a choice collection 
 illustrative of aboriginal arts, including some characteristic 
 specimens of horn and bone implements, from which some 
 illustrative examples are here selected. Fig. 46 may be 
 described as a chisel made of a hog's tooth inserted in a 
 haft of deer's horn, precisely after a fashion familiar to the 
 Red Indian, of converting the incisor of the beaver into a 
 
 Flu, 40.— Hog's Tooth Chisel, Conciae. 
 
 useful cutting tool. The same collection includes knives, 
 daggers, bodkins, or awls, made of bone or ivory, and hafted 
 in like manner with horn ; as well as implements of flint 
 and stone hereafter referred to.* 
 
 Among the tools and personal ornaments wrought of 
 mammoth ivory, which Dean Buckland describes as found in 
 the Goat Hole Cavern at Paviland, is a skewer made of the 
 metacarpal bone of a wolf, flattened at the edge at one end, 
 and terminated at the other by the natural rounded condyle 
 of the bone. Implements of this type are by no means 
 rare. The original disclosures of Kent's Cavern included 
 arrow and lance heads, bodkins, pins, hair-combs, netting- 
 
 ' For a more detailed account, vldt Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. vi. p. 376. 
 
iv.l 
 
 ARTS OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDERS. 
 
 121 
 
 tools, and other implements, all made of bone. Similar 
 objects have been repeatedly found in Scottish weems 
 and brochs, and in the kitchen-middens of Britain, Den- 
 mark, and other European accumulations of the like kind. 
 Fig. 47 represents a group of such objects, chiefly from one 
 of the primitive subterranean dwellings, at Skara, in Orkney. 
 It includes a small perforated ivory pin, and a bodkin made 
 after the fashion of the Goat Hole wolf-bone implement 
 from the metatarsal bone of a smr.U ox. Implements of 
 this simple character are common to the arts of many 
 
 i? 
 
 Fni. 47.— British Bono Imploiiioiits. 
 
 periods and states of society ; and like the flint and stone 
 implements of nearly every age and country, help to illus- 
 trate the tool-making instinct peculiar to man. 
 
 Isolated in the little island-worlds of the Pacific Ocean, 
 man is found again and again, in a condition which seems 
 to involve all but absolute privation of the materials on 
 which his constructive faculty can operate. The extensive 
 archipelago interposed between the Society and Gambler 
 Islands and the Marquesas, consists exclusively of coral 
 islands. There the native arts are mostly of an inferior 
 
 
122 
 
 CARIB SHELL- KNIVES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 character ; though their small and slight canoes are propelled 
 with great rapidity by means of a paddle ingeniously formed 
 with a curved blade. But every idea of rudeness in their arts 
 gives way to wonder and admiration on discovering the 
 limited materials at the command of the workmen. The 
 cocoa-palm furnishes supplies for matting and weaving, and 
 the cassytha stems and cocoa-nut fibre are plaited into ropes. 
 A finer cord is made of human hair ; and bones of the 
 turtle and the larger kinds of fish supply the only material 
 for fish-hooks and spears. There are no natural productions 
 on the islands harder than shell or coral ; and from these 
 accordingly the native tools are made. Here, therefore, we 
 see what reason is capable of achieving in the development 
 of ingenious arts, amid a privation of nearly all that seems 
 indispensable to the first efforts at constructive skill. Com- 
 pared with such inadequate means, the flint, stone, horn, 
 and bone of Europe's stone-period seem little less ample, than 
 the contrast of her later metallurgic riches with the re- 
 sources of that primitive era. ; . ^ ■ '{ " 
 
 Though the natives of the Antilles possespsd some natural 
 advantages over the inhabitants of the volcanic and coral 
 islands of the Pacific : yet the abundance of large and 
 easily-wrought shells invited their application to many use- 
 ful purposes ; and accordingly when first visited by the 
 Spaniards, the large marine shells with which the neighbour- 
 ing seas abound, constituted an important source for the 
 raw material of their implements and manufactures. The 
 great size, and the facility of workmanship of the widely- 
 diffused pyrulcB, turhinella, strombi, and other shells, have 
 indeed led to a similar application of them among uncivilised 
 races, wherever they abound. Of such, the Caribs made 
 knives, lances, and harpoons, as well as personal ornaments ; 
 while the mollusc itself was sought for and prized as food. 
 In Barbadoes the Stromhus gigas still furnishes a favourite 
 repast ; and numerous weapons and implements made from 
 its shells have been dug up on the island. The accompany- 
 
iv.l 
 
 ABORIGINES OF THE ANTILLES. 
 
 123 
 
 re- 
 
 ' 
 
 ing illustrations (Fig. 48) are selected from specimens 
 illustrative of the primitive manufactures of the Antilles 
 presented to me by Dr. Bovell. They were dug up with 
 other relics, in the island of Barbadoes, where traces of the 
 aboriginal Carib blood continued till very recently to mark 
 a portion of the coloured population. The Christy collection 
 includes various examples of axes believed to be of Carib 
 workmanship, from Porto Rico, St. Juan, and St. Thomas. 
 They are worked in greenstone, mottled jade, green jasper, 
 and a hard light green slate, mostly in wedge-form. But 
 the most characteristic specimen of local art is an axe of 
 coral rock, 7^ inches long, semi-cylindrical, and tapering at 
 
 Fia. 48.— Carib Sliell-Kuivcs. 
 
 both ends, which was found in the cave of Cuevetas, twenty 
 miles from Puerto del Principe, Cuba. 
 
 The Carib aborigines of the Antilles furnish a striking 
 example of what the more active manifestations of moral 
 degradation among a savage people really imply. Compared 
 with the gentle, passive Indians met by the Spaniards on 
 the first islands visited by European explorers, the Ciiribs 
 were a cruel and fierce race of cannibals, as hateful in all 
 their most salient characteristics as the New Zealanders or 
 Fijians. Yet time has proved, even under very unfavour- 
 able circumstances, that the fierceness and aggressive cruelty 
 of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles corresponded to the wild 
 fury of the old viking rovers of Europe, and gave proof of 
 energy and stamina capable of sturdy endurance ; while the 
 gentle and friendly Indians of the larger Antilles, without. 
 
 Pi 
 
 W 
 
124 
 
 CARIBS OF ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 lii 
 
 in reality, any superior moral attributes, but only the char- 
 acteristics of a weak and passive nature, have disappeared, 
 leaving behind them scarcely a memorial of their existence. 
 The Caribs are the historic race of the Antilles. Their 
 chronicles derive vitality and endurance, like those of ancient 
 Europe, from the vicissitudes of war. Those show them as 
 restless aggressors; and though long since expelled from 
 their ancient insular possessions, they still appear on the 
 southern mainland as the people of an encroaching area ; 
 and the marches of their extending frontier ring with the 
 shouts of border warfare, as fierce, and to us not greatly less 
 substantial than the Wendish and Bulgarian warrings of 
 Henry the Fowler, and his German Markgrafs of well-nigh 
 a thousand years ago. 
 
 In 1851, Sii' Robert Schomburgk communicated to the 
 British Association the results of recent ethnological re- 
 searches in St. Domingo. In these tl bservant traveller 
 deplored the fact that of the millions ^^ natives who at its 
 discovery peopled the island, not a single pure descendant 
 now exists, though he could trace in the Indios of mixed 
 blood the peculiar features and other physical characteristics 
 of the Indian still uneradicated. In the absence of a true 
 native population. Sir Robert Schomburgk remarks: "My 
 researches were restricted to what history and the few and 
 poor monuments have transmitted to us of their customs 
 and manners. Their language lives only in the names of 
 places, trees, and fruits, but all combine in declaring that 
 the people who bestowed these names were identical with 
 the Carib and Arawaak tribes of Guiana. An excursion to 
 the calcareous caverns of Pommier, about ten leagues to the 
 west of the city of Santo Domingo, afforded me the exami- 
 nation of some picture-writings executed by the Indians 
 after the arrival of the Spaniards. These remarkable caves, 
 which are in themselves of high interest, are situated within 
 the district over which, at the landing of the Spaniards, the 
 fair Indian Oatalina reigned as cacique." To this district 
 
 i! 
 
IV.] 
 
 CAVE PICTURES AND CARVINGS. 
 
 "5 
 
 they were tempted by the news of rich mines in its moun 
 tains. In 1496, a fortified tower was erected, called origi 
 nally San Aristobal ; but so abundant was the precious 
 metal, that even the stones of the fortress contained it, and 
 the workmen named it the Golden Tower. But the lives of 
 millions of the miserable natives were sacrificed in recover- 
 ing the gold from their mountain veins ; and then, the mines 
 being exhausted, the country was abandoned to the exuber- 
 ance of tropical desolation, while the caverns which had 
 previously been devoted to religious rites, became places of 
 retreat from the Spaniard and his frightful bloodhounds. 
 One of the smaller caves still exhibits a highly interesting 
 series of symbolic pictures, which the Indians had traced on 
 its white and smooth walls. Near the entrance of a second 
 cave, Sir R Schomburgk discovered decorations of a more 
 enduring charac jr carved on the rock, and of these he re- 
 marks : " They belong to a remoter period, and prove much 
 more skill and patience than the simple figures painted with 
 charcoal on the walls of the cave near Pommier. The figures 
 carved of stone, and w^orked without iron tools, denote, if 
 not civilisation, a quick conception and an inexhaustible 
 patience, to give to these hard substances the desired forms." 
 From his examination of the tools and utensils still in, use 
 in Guiana, Sir Robert doubted such to be the work of the 
 Caribs ; but he admitted that they are only found where we 
 have sure evidence of their presence ; and he under- estimated 
 both the skill and patience shown by many native artists 
 equally poorly provided with tools. 
 
 Other relics of native art and history attracted the atten- 
 tion of the traveller, and he specially dwelt with interest on 
 a paved ring of granite, upwards of 2200 feet in circumfer- 
 ence, with a human figure rudely fashioned in granite occu- 
 pying the centre. It stands in the vicinity of San Juan de 
 Maguana, in St. Domingo, which formed, at the time of its 
 first discovery, a distinct kingdom, governed by the cacique 
 Caonabo, the most fierce and powerful of the Carib chiefs, 
 
126 
 
 PRIZED TROPICAL SHELLS. 
 
 [chap 
 
 and an irreconcilable enemy of the European invaders. It 
 is called at the present day, "El Cercado de los Indios," 
 but Sir Robert Schomburgk questioned its being the work 
 of the inhabitants of the island when first visited by the 
 Spaniards, and assigned it, along with figures which he ex- 
 amined cut on rocks in the interior of Guiana, and the 
 s^culptured figures of St. Domingo, to a people far superior 
 in intellect to those Columbus met with in Hispaniola. These 
 lie conceived to have come from the northern part of Mexico, 
 adjacent to the ancient district of Huastecas, and to have 
 been conquered and extirpated by their Carib sup planters, 
 prior to European colonists displacing them in their turn. 
 
 The roving Caribs supplied themselves with axes and 
 clubs of jade, greenstone, and others of the most prized 
 materials of the mainland ; but they turned the easily 
 wrought shells of the neighbouring seas to account in much 
 the same way as the natives of the coral islands of the 
 Pacific to whom any harder material is unknown. But 
 while noting the varied uses to which the shells of the 
 Caribbean Sea were applied by the natives of the archi- 
 pelago, a greater interest attaches to the indications of an 
 ancient trade in these products of the Gulf of Florida, 
 carried on among widely-scattered tribes of North America, 
 long before its discovery by Columbus. 
 
 Abundant evidence proves that the large marine shells 
 were regarded with superstitious reverence, alike by the 
 more civilised nations of the land around the Gulf, and by 
 others even so fixr north as beyond the shores of the great 
 Canadian Lakes. In the latter case it is not difficult to 
 account for the origin of such a feeling among tribes 
 familiar only with small native fresh-water shells. But in 
 one of the singular migratory scenes of the ancient Mexican 
 paintings, copied from the Mendoza Collection,^ in the 
 Bodleian Library at Oxford, a native, barefooted, and 
 dressed in a short spotted tunic reachi ig to his loins, bears 
 
 ' Lonl KiiigHl)()r(»uj?li'H ^Ffricati Autii/iiidrH, vol. i. plntw (58. 
 
IV.J 
 
 ANCIENT GRA VES OF TENNESSEE. 
 
 127 
 
 ibes 
 it in 
 icaii 
 the 
 and 
 ►ears 
 
 in his right hand a spear, toothed round the blade, it may 
 be presumed with points of obsidian, and in his left hand 
 a large univalve shell. A river, which he is passing, is 
 indicated by a greenish stripe winding obliquely across the 
 drawing, and his track, as shown by alternate footprints, 
 has previously crossed the same stream. On this trail he 
 is followed by other figures nearly similarly dressed, but 
 sandalled, and bearing spears and large fans ; while a 
 second group ap[)roaches the river by a different trail, and 
 in an opposite direction to the shell-bearer. Other details 
 of this curious fragment of pictorial history are less easily 
 interpreted. An altar or a temple appears to be repre- 
 sented on one side of the stream ; and a highly coloured 
 circular figure on the other, may be the epitomised symbol 
 of some Achaean land or Sacred Elis of the New World. 
 But whatever be the interpretation of the ancient hiero- 
 glyphic painting, its general correspondence with other 
 migratory depictions is undoubted ; and it is worthy of 
 note, that, in some respects, the most prominent of all the 
 figures is the one represented fording the stream, and bear- 
 ing a large ropical univalve in his hand. 
 
 The evidence thus afforded of an importance attached to 
 the large sea-shells of the Gulf of Mexico, among the most 
 civilised of the American nations settled on its shores, 
 deserves notice in connection with the discovery of the same 
 marine products among relics pertaining to Indian tribes 
 upwards of three thousand miles distant from the native 
 habitat of the mollusca, and separated by hundreds of niilba 
 from tlie nearest sea- coast. 
 
 Tracing them along the northern route through the Mis- 
 sissippi and Ohio valleys, these sliells have been found in 
 the ancient graves of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana^ 
 and northward to the regions of tlie Great Lakes. Dr. 
 Gerard Troost, in a communication to the American Etli- 
 nological Society,\le8cribe3 an interesting series of H(!!pulchral 
 
 ' TranmctioHM, Amfrkan Ethnoloyicnl SoHety, vol. i. pp. 3fir)-305, 
 
 11 
 
128 
 
 SHELL MANUFACTURES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 remains discovered in Tennessee, The crania were charac- 
 terises! by remarkable artificial compression, as in an ex- 
 amp^ figured by Dr. Morton (plate 55, Crania Americana), 
 and the graves abounded with relics, " lares, trinkets, and 
 utensils, all of a very rude construction, and all formed of 
 some natural product, none of metal." From an examina- 
 tion of those. Dr. Troost was led to the conclusion that the 
 race to whom they pertained came from some tropical 
 country. Among their stone implements obsidian abounded. 
 Numerous beads were formed of tropical marine shells of 
 the genus 7narginella, ground so as to make a perforation 
 on the back, by means of which they could be strung 
 together for purposes of personal ornament. Plain beads 
 were made from the columella) of the Stromhus (jigas; 
 and such columell^e were found worked to a uniform thick- 
 ness, perforated through the 
 centre, and in all stages of 
 manufacture, to that of per- 
 fected beads and links of 
 the much-prized wampum. 
 Similar accumulations of 
 shell-beads in the great 
 mounds of the Ohio valley 
 are referred to in a subse- 
 quent chapter ; but another 
 relic has an additional value 
 from the light it throws not 
 only on early native arts, 
 but on ancient manners and 
 modes of thought. Dr. 
 Troost describes and figure« 
 Fio.4i>.-To.n.e88eoMoi. vaHous rudcly sculpturcd 
 
 idols, from some of which he was led to assume the existence 
 of Phallic rites among the ancient idolaters of Tennessee. 
 The greater number of the idols were of stone, but the one 
 figured hero (Fig. 40) has been modelled of clay and pounded 
 
,v.] 
 
 HURON AND PETUN GRA VES. 
 
 129 
 
 shells, and hardened in the fire. It represents a nude human 
 figure, kneeling, with the hands clasped in front ; and when 
 found, it still occupied, as its primitive niche or sanctuary, a 
 large tropical shell {Cassis Jlammea), from which the in- 
 terior whorls and columella had been removed, with the 
 exception of a small portion at the base, cut off" flat, so as 
 to form its pedestal. The special application of this ex- 
 ample of the tropical cassides adds a peculiar interest to it, 
 as manifestly associated with the religious rites of the 
 ancient race by whom the spoils of southern seas were trans- 
 ported inland, and converted to purposes of ornament 
 and use. ,^ ' 1 
 
 The discovery of similar relics to the north of the Great 
 Lakes is still more calculated to excite interest ; and, in- 
 deed, when first brought under notice they gave rise to extra- 
 vagant ethnological theories, based on the assumption of 
 their East Indian origin.^ But though they furnished no 
 evidence of such far wanderings from the old East, they 
 throw considerable light on ancient migrations of native 
 American races, and illustrate the extent of traffic carried 
 on between tho north and south, in ages prior to the dis- 
 placement of the Kcd-man by the European. Two large 
 cropical shells, both specimens of the Pyrula perversa, have 
 been presented to the Canadian Institute at Toronto : not 
 as cxjimples of the native conchology of the tropics, but as 
 Indian relics pertaining to the great northern chain of fresh- 
 water lakes. The first was discovered on opening a grave- 
 mound at Nottawasaga, on tho Georgian Bay, along with a 
 gorget made from the same kind of shell ; tho second was 
 brought from the Fishing Islands, near Capo Hurd, on Lnko 
 Huron. Thirteen other examples from tho Georgian Bay 
 are in tho Museum of Laval University ; and many 
 more have come under my notice procured from grave- 
 mounds and sepulchral depositories in different parts of 
 Western Canada. Recently, in the summer of 1874, a 
 
 * Inquiry into the Origin qf the Antiqiiiliea of America, p. 162. 
 VOL. I. I 
 
13^ 
 
 SACRED SHELL- VESSELS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 8<t t: 
 
 large ossuary of the Tiontonones, or Petuns, was accident- 
 ally opened at Lake Medad, in the county of Wentworth, 
 within which were found evidences of extensive sepul- 
 ture, numerous clay and stone pipes of curious work- 
 manship, shell and stone implements, and a number 
 of the same tropical shells, both whole and in pieces, 
 most of which are now in the possession of Mr. B. E. 
 Charlton of Hamilton, Ontario. Similar ossuaries have 
 been repeatedly opened in the Huron Country, between 
 Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. In one pit, about 
 seven miles from Penetanguishene, three large conch-shells 
 were found, along with twenty-six copper kettles, a pipe, a 
 copper bracelet, a quantity of shell beads, and numerous 
 other relics. The largest of the shells, a specimen of the 
 Pyrula spirata, weighed three pounds and a quarter, and 
 measured fourteen inches in length ; but a piece had been 
 cut off this, as well as another of the large shells, probably 
 for the manufacture of some smaller ornament. In another 
 cemetery in the same district, among copper arrow-heads, 
 bracelets, and ear-ornaments, pipes of stone and clay, beads 
 of porcelain, red pipe- stone, etc., sixteen of the same prized 
 tropical univalves lay round the bottom of the pit arranged 
 in groups of three or four together. From such shells the 
 sacred wampum, official gorgets, and other special decora- 
 tions were made ; and the appearance of some of those found 
 in northern graves suggests that they may have been handed 
 down through successive generations as great medicines, 
 before their final deposition, with other rare and costly 
 offerings, in honour of the dead. 
 
 The attractions offered by such products of tropical seas 
 are by no means limited to the untutored tastes of the 
 American Indian. In India, China, and Siam, the Pyrum, 
 and other large and beautiful shells of the Indian Ocean, 
 are no less highly prized by the natives, not only u& an 
 easily wrought material for implements and personal orna- 
 ments ; but in some cases, as vessels employed in their most 
 
 
[chap. 
 
 ident- 
 worth, 
 sepul- 
 work- 
 umber 
 pieces, 
 B. E. 
 J have 
 3twecn 
 about 
 i-shells 
 pipe, a 
 naerous 
 of the 
 jr, and 
 Ld been 
 robably 
 mother 
 |-heads, 
 beads 
 prized 
 ranged 
 lis the 
 iecora- 
 5 found 
 landed 
 (icines, 
 costly 
 
 seas 
 lof the 
 \yrum, 
 )ccan, 
 uS an 
 orna- 
 most 
 
 IT.] 
 
 PRIMITIVE SHEIL ORNAMENTS. 
 
 131 
 
 sacred rites. A sinistrorsal variety found on the coasts of 
 Tranquebar and Ceylon, is devoted by the Cingalese exclu- 
 sively to such purposes. Reversed shells of the species Tur- 
 binella, are held in like veneration in China, where great 
 prices are given for them ; and are often curiously orna- 
 mented with elaborate carvings, as shown on several fine 
 specimens in the British Museum. They are kept in the 
 pagodas, and are not only employed by the priests on special 
 occasions in administering medicine to the sick ; but the 
 vessel for holding the. consecrated oil, with which the Em- 
 peror is anointed at his coronation, is made from one of them. 
 Such analogies in the choice of materials, and in objects 
 set apart for the sacred rites of diflferent nations, are full of 
 interest in reference to characteristics common to man in all 
 ages, and in regions the most remote. But when they arc 
 met with in the arts and customs of the same continent, they 
 point with greater probability to borrowed usages, and often 
 help the ethnologist to track the footprints of migrating 
 nations to their earlier homer>. But the use of shells for 
 personal ornaments has been traced back, along with other 
 evidence of the antiquity of man, almost to what seems the 
 primeval dawn. In the caves of southern Franco and Italy, 
 along with mammoth and reindeer bones and ivory, and 
 iu the sepulchral deposits at Aurignac, lay shell necklaces 
 or bracelets made of the Littorma Uttorea, still abundant 
 on the shores of the Atlantic, along with perforated shells 
 of the miocene period, evidently gathered in a fossil stato 
 to be converted to purposes of personal decoration. So also 
 in a later, but still prehistoric age, the megalithic tomb, 
 brought to light, in 1838, under the Knock-Maraidho Crom- 
 lech in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, disclosed two male skele- 
 tons, underneath the skulls of which lay a number of tho 
 common Nerita littoralis, perforated, evidently for tho 
 purpose of being strung together as neck ornaments. An 
 ornamental bone-pin, with a knob carved at each end, and a 
 rudo flint knife, constituted the only other contents of this 
 
132 
 
 AMERICAN SHELL MOUNDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 primitive tomb which had been constructed with such costly 
 toil. 
 
 Other British cists and cairns have disclosed similar relics 
 of the shell necklace and bracelet, made of the oyster, limpet, 
 and cockle shells, the contents of which supplied an import- 
 ant source of food. For not only in the ancient kitchen- 
 middens of northern Europe, but mingling with more ancient 
 cave deposits, as in Kent's Cavern, lay heaps of the shells of 
 such edible molluscs, the refuse of the table of the old cave- 
 men, which shows one resource on which they depended for 
 subsistence. America, too, had its ancient shell and refuse 
 heaps, as at Cannon's Point, St. Simon's Island, Georgia, 
 where a vast mound of oyster and mussel shells, intermingled 
 here and there with a mediola or helix, and with flint arrow- 
 heads, stone axes, and fragments of pottery, covers an area 
 of not less than ten acres. But they abound upon all the 
 sea islands of the Southern States, and in many cases con- 
 stitute regular sepulchral mounds or shell cairns. One of 
 these singular cairns on Stalling's Island, in the Savannah 
 river, more than two hundred miles from its mouth, is an 
 elliptical mound measuring nearly three hundred feet in 
 length, and enclosing, along with human skeletons, 
 bones of large fish, deer, and other wild animals, accom- 
 panied with broken pottery, arrow-heads, axes, flint-knives, 
 and charred wood. On the islands, and along the coast of 
 Georgia and Florida, the inexhaustible supplies of oysters, 
 conches, and clams, furnished an abundant supply of food. 
 Around the Indian villages the shells accumulated in waste 
 heaps ; and even now, at times, show the circular hollow 
 where the native hut had stood. With a mild climate, 
 abundant game and indigenous fruits, in addition to the 
 • inexhaustible spoils of the sea, the Southern Indians had 
 little temptation to roam ; and the numerous shell mounds 
 and cairns affbrd proof of their settled occupation of many 
 localities. A large drinking-cup, made of the conch shell, 
 was one of the special attributes of the Indian cacique ; and 
 
IV.] 
 
 A SHELL CURRENCY. 
 
 ^iZ 
 
 many 
 shell, 
 and 
 
 such cups are frequently found deposited beside the buried 
 skeleton. 
 
 Fresh-water shell heaps also abound ; and Professor 
 Jeffries Wyman made those of East Florida the subject 
 of an interesting paper in The American Naturalist. Such 
 memorials of the encampments of the aborigines are histo- 
 rical records of the habits and customs of ancient native 
 tribes. The fresh-water mussels, which constituted an 
 important article of food, and also supplied the pearls which 
 they prized for decoration, enter largely into the contents 
 of the heaps. Intenningled with them are " numerous frag- 
 ments of pottery, stone axes, chisels, crushing-stones, awls, 
 mortars, net-sinkers, arrow and spear points, flint knives, 
 shell beads, soapstone ornaments, pipes, and the bones of 
 deer, buffalo, alligators, turtles, racoons, and other animals."^ 
 Many of the bones have been split, like those found in the 
 ancient mounds and caves of Europe, for the purpose of ex- 
 tracting the marrow ; and along with such evidences of 
 culinary arts are piles of chipped flint and stone, with broken 
 or unfinished axes, spear and arrow heads, and other traces 
 of the Indian tool-maker's workshop. In all ways we 
 thus recognise, amid diversities of race, climate, and other 
 external circumstances, many minute analogies between the 
 men of p.ilseolithic and neolithic ages of Europe, and those 
 of the new world's more recent centuries, in regions apart 
 from its singular centres of a native civilisation. 
 
 But also the convenient form and beauty of various marine 
 shells have led to their use, not only as a substitute for the 
 flint and stone of other localities, or the unknown bronze 
 and iron of later ages, but even for the precious metals as 
 the medium of a recognised currency, and this from times 
 of unknown antiquity, alike in the old world and in the new. 
 Of such substitutes for a metallic currency the Gyprcea 
 moneta is the most familiar. The cowrie shells used as 
 currency are procured on the coast of Congo, and in the 
 
 ^ AnUquiliet of lh« Southern Indians, p. 200. 
 
U4 
 
 lOQUA STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 V\ I 
 
 Philippine and Maldive Islands. Of the latter, indeed, they 
 still constitute the chief article of export. At what remote 
 date, or at what early stage of rudimentary civilisation, this 
 singular representative shell-currency was introduced, it is 
 perhaps vain to inquire ; but the extensive area over which it 
 has long been recognised proves its great antiquity. The 
 Philippine Islands form, in part, the eastern boundary of the 
 Southern Pacific, and the Maldives lie off the Malabar coast 
 in the Indian Ocean ; but their shells circulate as currency 
 not only through Southern Asia, but far into the African 
 continent. ■■.- ■ :^': -■.',- >'■''■;£ ;.':■;,■...>,.. :>/::-,.. ^..^■v,;--:,^ ;-;■•"■' ,* 
 
 Corresponding to this cowrie currency of Asia and Africa 
 is the American loqua, or Dentalium, a shell found chiefly 
 at the entrance of the Strait of De Fuca, and employed both 
 for ornament and money. The Chinooks and other Indians 
 of the Northern Pacific coast wear long strings of ioqua 
 shells as necklaces and fringes to their robes. These have a 
 value assigned to them, increasing in proportion to their 
 size, which varies from about an inch and a half to upwards 
 of two inches in length. Mr. Paul Kane thus wrote to me : 
 "A great trade is carried on among all the tribes in the 
 neighbourhood of Vancouver's Island, through the medium 
 of these shells. Forty shells of the standard size, extending 
 a fathom's length, are equal in value to a beaver's skin ; but 
 if shells can be found so far in excess of the ordinary stand- 
 ard that thirty-nine are long enough to make the fathom, it 
 is worth two beavers' skins, and so on, increasing in value 
 one beaver skin for every shell less than the first number." 
 
 But as the New World has thus its disclosures and illus- 
 
 ,t' 
 
 trations of native arts and usages full of interest to tho 
 student of primeval man, so also the first glimpse of a western 
 hemisphere revealed its aborigines already familiar with that 
 distinctive evidence of reason, the art of fire-making, earliest 
 of all the practical sciences, and the indispensable precursor 
 of every higher art of civilisation. 
 
v.] 
 
 THE FIRE- USING ANIMAL. 
 
 '35 
 
 >» 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRE. 
 
 THE PinK-USINO ANIMAL— ESQUIMAUX U8R OF FIRE— FUEOIAN FIRE-MAKINQ— 
 MODES OP PRODUCTNO FIRE— AUSTRALIAN FIRE-MYTH— MEN OP THE MAM- 
 MOTH AGE— HEAF.THS OF THE CAVE-MEN— PACIFIC ROOT-WORD FOR FIRE— GREAT 
 CYCLE OP THE AZTECS— REKINDLING THE SACRED FIRE— PERUVIAN SUN-WOR- 
 SHIPPERS- SACRIFICE OP THE WHITE DOG— SACRED FIRES OP THE MOUND- 
 BUILDERS— INDIAN FIRE-MAKING — SANCTITT OF FIRE— TIERRA DEL FUEOO. 
 
 No incident attending the discovery of America is more 
 suggestive than the evidence which first satisfied Columbus 
 that his exploration of the mysterious western ocean had 
 not been in vain. The sun had descended beneath the 
 waves as his eye ranged along the horizon in search of the 
 long expected land, when suddenly a light glimmered in the 
 distance, once and again reappeared to the eyes of Pedro 
 Gutierrez and others whom he summoned to confirm his 
 vision, and then darkness and doubt resumed their reign. 
 But to Columbus all was clear. Not only did those flitting 
 gleams reveal to him certain signs of the long-wished-for 
 land ; they told him no less clearly that the land was 
 inhabited by man. 
 
 There is something singularly significant in the old Greek 
 myth which represents the Titanic son of lapetus stealing 
 the fire of Zeus that he might confer on the human race a 
 power over the crude elements of nature. Man is peculiarly 
 fire-using. The element which becomes in his hands a 
 power that controls all the others, and subjects them to his 
 use, is an object of dread to the lower animals, alike amid 
 arctic snows and the shadows of a night-camp in the tropics. 
 Its use, moreover, is so universal as to admit of its being 
 
136 
 
 ESQUIMAUX USE OF FIRE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 m 
 
 UL 
 
 regarded aa one of the primitive instincts of man, and so 
 peculiarly his own that he may be appropriately designated 
 the fire-using animal. Nevertheless, his supposed ignorance 
 of fire during primitive ages has been employed as an argu- 
 ment in confirmation of the idea that the first habitat of 
 man must have been a climate where his unclothed body 
 experienced no discomfort from the changing seasons, and 
 '.vhere fruit was found in sufficient abundance to supply his 
 wants without need of artificial preparation.^ 
 
 Yet it is in climates where the torrid sun presents itself 
 as the life-giving force that, alike in the old and the new 
 world, the worship of fire, and the rites associated with its 
 use, have been found most fully developed. It is noticeable, 
 moreover, that fire is less used in the frigid than in the tem- 
 perate zones as the direct source of heat. The Esquimaux 
 in his snow-hut would find a fire productive only of dis- 
 comfort. Even in the adaptation of animal food to his use 
 cookery is less indispensable than in other latitudes ; and 
 fire is more prized by him in his brief summer as a protec- 
 tion against the myriads of noxious insects then warmed 
 into life, than as a means of counteracting the rigour of a 
 polar winter. He depends for warmth on his fur clothing, 
 and still more on the heat-producing blubber and fat which 
 constitute so large a portion of his food. Yet the lamp, 
 generally made of stone, with its moss wick, and the stone 
 kettle, play an important part among the implements and 
 culinary apparatus of an Esquimaux s hut. On those he 
 depends for his supply of water from melted snow, for 
 thawing and drying his clothes, and for cooking ; and with- 
 out the light of the lamp the indoor life of the long un- 
 broken arctic night would be spent as in a living tomb. 
 The Esquimaux generally possess a piece of iron pyrites 
 and of quartz. These serve them for flint and steel, with 
 which they ignite a tuft of dried moss frayed in the hand. 
 But they are also familiar with the more laborious firo- 
 
 ^ Flourens, De la LotigSvUd Ilumaine, p> 127. 
 
v.] 
 
 FUEGIAN FIRE-MAKJNG. 
 
 137 
 
 making process by means of friction, which is in general 
 use throughout America. 
 
 At the opposite extremity of the Continent lies Tierra del 
 Fuego, the natives of which are exposed to still greater 
 privations, and have been pronounced by observant voyagers 
 as among the most degraded of savage races. Yet the . 
 Fuegians exhibit considerable ingenuity in constructing 
 their fishing tackle, slings, bows and stone-tipped arrows, 
 stone knives, and javelins pointed with bone. A bone har- 
 poon in use by them, barbed only on one side (Fig. 33), re- 
 sembles examples already referred to found in the Dordogne 
 and other caves of the era when the mammoth and its 
 hunters existed together in Southern France. M. Lecoq dc 
 Boisbeaudrau suggests that the deflection of the harpoon 
 80 formed serves as an equivalent for the refraction of the 
 fish in the water, and thus the fisherman secures an unerring 
 aim. If so, it furnishes an ingenious application of the fruits 
 of experience directed to rectify a difficulty common to the 
 modern Fuegian and to the Troglodyte of post-glacial times. 
 The cunoes of the Fuegians are rudely constructed of 
 bark sewed together with prepared sinews. In the bottom 
 a hearth of clay is made, on which they habitually keep a 
 fire alight. They too have learned the value of iron pyrites, 
 and with its help readily obtain the spark required for 
 igniting their prepared tinder of dried moss or fungus. 
 Captain WeddeU states that he produced the tinder box in 
 preso!!ce of a party of Fuegians, in order to ascertain how 
 fire is obtained by them, and presently he discovered that 
 his steel had been purloined. This, however, he recovered, 
 and after sending the culprit to his canoe with threats of 
 punishment, he learned that they procure fire by rubbing 
 iron pyrites and a flinty stone together, catching the sparks 
 in a dry substance resembling moss.^ 
 
 The ancient use of pyrites for fire-making is supposed to 
 be embodied in its etymology (ttO/j). Mr. John Evans has 
 
 * WeddoU's Voyaqt tvimrUs ihe South Pole in 1822-24, p. 167. 
 
mm 
 
 mm' 
 
 |8b,. 
 
 B 
 
 ^S 'SIKm''^ 
 
 ^UHW " 
 
 i3« 
 
 MODES OF PRODUCING FIRE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 pointed out that the lower beds of the same English chalk 
 in which the flint abounds are prolific of pyrites ; and he 
 makes the suggestion that the use of a nodule of pyrites for 
 a hammer-stone in the process of manufacturing flint im- 
 plements, may have led to the discovery of this method of 
 producing fire. But if so, it is a discovery of remote an- 
 tiquity, for such nodules have been found both in French 
 and Belgian caves, associated with the bones of fossil mam- 
 mals and worked flints of the palaeolithic era. They also 
 occur in the Swiss lake-dwellings, as at Robenhausen, along 
 with neolithic implements. 
 
 But pyrites is not always available ; and Esquimaux, Fue- 
 gians, and Australians practise also the more usual, and pro- 
 bably the more ancient, method of producing fire by friction. 
 The process among the Tahitians and South Sea Islanders 
 is pursued in the laboriously artless fashion of rubbing one 
 piece of wood against another ; though it is said that, with 
 perfectly dry wood, they obtain fire in this way in two or 
 three minutes, Australian fire-making is eflfected in nearly 
 the same way ; but the American Indians have improved 
 on the process by the use of the bow and drill. Among 
 the Iroquois ad other tribes, the drill was provided with a 
 stone whorl, or fly-wheel, to give it momentum ; and when 
 rapidly revolved by means of a bow and string, with the 
 point resting on a piece of dry wood, surrounded with moss 
 or punk, sparks are produced in a few seconds, and the 
 tinder is ignited. 
 
 The art of fire-making is thus found in use among savage 
 nations, even in the most degraded state : as among the 
 Fuegians, whose wretched condition and repulsive appear- 
 ance and habits have led travellers to describe them as 
 scarcely human. They are indeed in every way inferior to 
 the Esquimaux. Yet their implements and weapons display 
 remarkable ingenuity and skill ; and the origin of the name 
 of their desolate region is traced to the numerous fires seen 
 by the first Spanish discoverers who navigated its coasts. 
 
 \A 
 
v] 
 
 A USTRALIAN FIRE-MYTH. 
 
 139 
 
 The aborigines of Australia rival t:ie Fuegians alike in 
 physical and intellectual degradation ; but, like them also, 
 have achieved or perpetuated the discovery which lies at 
 the very foundation of all possible civilisation. According 
 to the inconsequential account furnished by a native Aus- 
 tralian of their first acquisition of fire : — " A long, long time 
 ago a little bandicoot* was the sole owner of a fire-brand, 
 which he cherished with the greatest jealousy. So selfish 
 was he in the use of his prize, that he obstinately refused to 
 share it with the other animals. So they held a general 
 council, \<^here it was decided that the fire must be obtained 
 from the Tsandicoot either by force or strategy. The hawk 
 and pigeon were deputed to carry out this resolution ; and 
 after vainly trying to induce the fire-owner to share its 
 blessings with his neighbours, the pigeon, seizing, as he 
 thought, an unguarded moment, made a dash to obtain the 
 prize. The bandicoot saw that affairs had come to a crisis, 
 and, in desperation, threw the fire towards the river, there 
 to quench it for ever. But, fortunately for the black man, 
 the sharp-eyed hawk was hovering near, and seeing the fire 
 falling into the water, with a stroke of his wing he knocked 
 the brand far over the stream into the long dry grass of the 
 opposite bank, which immediately ignited, and the flames 
 spread over the face of the country. The black man then 
 felt the fire, and said it was good."^ 
 
 The discovery of the art of fire-making, prefigured in this 
 rude myth, is intimately associated in the minds of the 
 Australian aborigines with their distinctive ideas of man. 
 According to the mythology of the Booroung tribe, inhabit- 
 ing the Mallee country, on Lake Tyrill, they were preceded 
 on the earth by a race of Nurrumbunguttias, or old spirits, 
 who had the knowledge of fire ; but these were translated 
 to heaven before the black man came into existence. One 
 of them, named War, or the Crow, — the Australian Prome- 
 
 ^ A amall sharp-nosed animal, not unlike the Ouiuea-pig. 
 - Canadiati Journal^ N.S.y vol. i. p. 609. 
 
140 
 
 MEJSI OF THE MAMMOTH AGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 thous, — is now the star Canopus ; and he it was who first 
 brought fire back to earth, and gave it to *he black men.^ 
 
 It is a noticeable fact that, while the Maoris of New Zea- 
 land use the same word, ahii for fire, which under slight 
 modifications is employed through widely severed island 
 groups of the Pacific : different Australian tribes use distinct 
 names for it, as darloo at Moreton Bay, hoyung at Lake 
 Macquarrie, and kauhi at Bathurst. In the Kamilarai of 
 Wellington Valley it is called koyan ; while in the Wiradurei, 
 spoken about 200 miles inland from Lake Macquarrie, it is 
 Such diversity of names for the common acquisition 
 
 win. 
 
 proves that fire is no recent novelty derived from a single 
 source by the savage tribes of that strange southern continent. 
 Amid all the remarkable evidence recently disclosed re- 
 lative to the antiquity and the rude arts of primitive man, 
 nothing has yet appeared suggestive of a condition inferior 
 to the savages of Tierra del Fuego or Australia; while much 
 tends to an opposite conclusion. Alike in physical devel- 
 opment and in arts, the Troglodytes of the Dordogne caves 
 were undoubtedly far in advance of either; and yet tlu^y 
 were the contemporaries of the mammoth, the Siberian 
 rhinoceros, the cave lion and bear, the gigantic Irish elk, 
 the reindeer, and the fossil horse of Central Europe, — the 
 men of a period separated from our own by epochs the dura- 
 tion of which can be gauged by no standards of historical 
 chronology. It could scarcely admit of doubt that such men 
 were capable of achieving the art of fire-making. It might 
 even be questioned if they could have subsisted under the con- 
 ditions of life marking ^hat post-glacial epoch without the use 
 of fire. But on this subjectwe are not left to conjecture. 
 . The contents of the Aurignac cavern, in the department 
 of the Haute Garonne, at the foot of the Pyrenees, were at 
 first supposed to disclose a singularly interesting example 
 of sepulture contemporaneous with the fossil mammals of 
 the drift; and accompanied not only with implements 
 
 * Tran*. Phitoaoph. Institute, Victoria, vol. i. 
 
v.] 
 
 HEARTHS OF THE CA VEMEN. 
 
 141 
 
 and pcrsonjil omanients fashioned from their bones and 
 tusks, as well as others of flint ; but with the ashes of the 
 funeral fires and the dfJbris of the funeral feast which 
 formed a part of the last rites to the dead. Unfor- 
 tunately some discredit has been cast on the evidence 
 which seemed' to indicate that the remains of extinct mam- 
 malia, and those of the entombed dead, were contempo- 
 raneous ; and the importance of the deductions whi^'h this 
 discovery seemed to justify render it all the mo: ^ v ^dful 
 that the proof should be indisputable. But tl ' prf\;tice 
 of regular interment of the dead, accompanied with some 
 funeral rites, by the men of the post-glacial age, is suggested 
 by the contents of the sepulchral recess of Cro-Magnon, in 
 the valley of the V6z6re. No ashes of funeral fires ca.n 1)0 
 pointed to, but the traces of the use of fire are abundant. 
 
 Throughout the floors of various caves in this district 
 which have been rich in disclosures of primitive art, par- 
 ticles of charcoal abound at every level where broken bones 
 occur, suggesting that fires were in da.ily use, and were 
 employed for cooking much more than for Avarmth, Pos- 
 sibly, indeed, those caverns were only the summer dwellings 
 of the Drift-Folk of post-glacial times ; and with tbem, aa 
 with the Esquimaux, «nd the Indiana of North America 
 generally, fire may have been valued as a protection against 
 the noxious insects which, especitdiy in the brief summer of 
 n rigorous climate, render life intoh^rabk;. Fire is the iiiii- 
 rersjd servant of man. The Esquimaux and the Red Indian 
 ward off the mosquito, the bluck-fly, and the sand-fly by 
 means of a '* smudge " made with the smoke of grass find 
 green- wood; while the Hottentot or Bushman I'ndles Ida 
 night-fii'o in the tropics as the most cffe(?tual guardian 
 against })eu.sts of prey. Everywhere, and at ali epochs, firo 
 appears aa one of tlie most characteristic indices of rationtil 
 man ; and as we study such traces of him as reappear for 
 us in the works of art and the extiuguishod fires of the 
 Moustier and Madelaine cave-dwcllinga, or those of the oeo- 
 
 m 
 
 1 1 
 
142 
 
 PACIFIC ROOT- WORD FOR FIRE. 
 
 fcHAP. 
 
 lithic, if not an earlier period of the Aurignac catacomb, wo 
 see the unmistakable evidences of human intelligence ; and 
 anew concur in the decision of Columbus, that the night- torch 
 of the Guanahan^ savage was indisputable proof that the un- 
 known world which lay before him was the habitation of man. 
 
 It may be doubted if man has anywhere existed without 
 the knowledge of fire. By means of it some of his earliest 
 triumphs over nature have been achieved. With its aid 
 his range is no longer limited to latitudes where the spon- 
 taneous fruits of the earth abound at every season. The use 
 of fire lies at the root of all the industrial arts. The friendly 
 savages found by Columbus on the first-discovered island of 
 the New World were armed with wooden lances, hardened 
 at the ond by its means. The most civilised among the 
 nations conquered by Cortes and Pizarro, had learned by the 
 same means to smelt the ores of the Andes, and make of their 
 metallic alloys the tools with which to quarry and hew 
 the rocks, to sculpture the statues of the gods of Anahuac, 
 and the palaces and temples of the Peruvian children of the 
 sun. Without fire the imperfect implements of the stone 
 period would be altogether inadequate to man's necessities. 
 By its help he fells the lofty trees, against which his un- 
 aided stone hatchet would be powerless. It plays a no less 
 important part in preparing the log- canoe of the savage, 
 than in propelling the wonderful steamship, l)y means of 
 which the great lakes and rivers of the New World have 
 become the highways of migrating nations. 
 
 A common root-word for fire serves to connect numerous 
 scattered insular races of the great Pacific archipelagos, 
 through their intercourse with the Malay voyagers. Yet 
 while the Malay word d'pi may be taken as the source of many 
 diversified forms of the insular term for fire, the Papuans, 
 rather than the Mjilays, ])resent the ethnical peculiarities pre- 
 dominant throughout Polynesia, and characteristic of the 
 Maoris of New Zealand ; and distinct roots in many intcrmo 
 diato island vocabularies prove the independent knowlo^lgc of 
 
v.l 
 
 GREAT CYCLE OF THE AZTECS. 
 
 143 
 
 fire. The Vitian is rich in terms for light, warmth, shining, 
 kindling, burning, boiling, etc. Aundre, to shine or flame, 
 becomes oundreva, to kindle, and vakaundre, to cause to 
 burn. From yame, the tongue, is made, by a familiar ana- 
 logy, yame-ni-mhuhiy a flame of fire. Ilgatu, fire, begets a 
 group of words, including ilgilaisOy charcoal, and ilgilaison- 
 gawa, hot cinders. Liva, a flash of lightning, gives lavi, to 
 bring fire, lovOy a furnace, a native oven ; and recalls one 
 familiar source of the knowledge of fire : as the asa, the 
 sun ; atua, a deity, probably the sun-god ; asu^ smoke, etc., 
 of the Rotuma dialect suggest another association of ideas 
 common to the Old and New World. 
 
 The fire-worship of the Ghebirs is but a degraded form 
 of that homage to visible divinity with which man worships 
 the god of day, and bows down before the heavenly host. 
 Among the civilised nations of the New World, accordingly, 
 a peculiar sanctity was associated with the familiar service 
 of fire. At the close of the great cycle of the Aztecs, when 
 the calendar was corrected to true solar time at the end of 
 the fifty-second year, a high religious festival was held, on 
 the eve of which they ])roke in pieces their household gods, 
 destroyed their furniture, and extinguished every fire. In 
 the reconstruction of the ritual calendar, the intercalated 
 days were held as though non-existent, and dedicated to no 
 god : on which account they were reputed unfortunate. 
 At the end of that dreary interval of fasting and penitence, 
 during which no hearth smoked, and no warm food could bo 
 eaten throughout the land, the ceremony of the new fire was 
 celebrated. After sunset the priests of the great temple went 
 forth to a neighbouring mountain, and there, at midnight, 
 the sacred flame was rekindled, which was to light up the 
 national fires for another cycle. The process by which it was 
 procured, by revolving one piece of dry wood in the hollow 
 of another, is repeatedly illustrated in the Mexican paintings 
 of Lord Kiugsborough's work. But, true to the bloody 
 rites of the national faith, at this sacred festival the fire was 
 
 ! « 
 
 ■' 1 
 
 r il 
 
144 
 
 REKINDLING THE SACRED FIRE. [chap. 
 
 kindled on the breast of a human victim, from whence the 
 reeking heart was immediately afterwards torn out, and 
 cast as a bloody offering to the gods. The period from the 
 extinction to the rekindling of the sacred flame was one of 
 great suspense. With a superstitious feeling, in striking 
 accordance with the customs and ideas of the northern 
 Indians, the women remained confined to their houses, with 
 their faces covered, under the belief that if they witnessed 
 the ceremony they would be forthwith transformed into 
 beasts. Meanwhile, the men gathered on the terraced roofs, 
 and looked forth in dread suspense into the darkness. The 
 flames on the summits of the great teocaliis, which lighted 
 up the city at all other seasons, had been extinguished ; and 
 if the priests failed to rekindle them, it was believed that 
 the night must be eternal, and the world would come to an 
 end. But dimly, through the darkness, a spark was seen 
 to glimmer on the distant summit of the mountain, and from 
 thence it was swiftly borne to the temple, towards which 
 the worshippers turned with renewed hope. As the sacred 
 flame again blazed on the high altar, and was distributed to 
 the other teocaliis, shouts of triumph ascended with it to 
 the sky. Feasts, joyous processions, and oblations at the 
 temples followed, and were prolonged through a festival of 
 thirteen days, devoted to a national jubilee for the recovered 
 flame, the type of a regenerated world.^ The long interval 
 which transpired between this closing rite of the great cycle 
 was of itself suflicient to give it an impressive sanctity in 
 the eyes of the Aztec worshipper. He who witnessed it in 
 youth saw it only once again as life drew towards a close; 
 whilst few indeed of all who rejoiced at the renewed gift of 
 fire could expect to look again on the strangely significant 
 rite. Compared with the annual miracle of the Greek 
 Church in the crypt of the Holy Sepulchre, to which it bears 
 Bomo resemblance, the great festival of the Aztecs was re- 
 plete with significance and solemn grandeur, though stained 
 with the blood of their hideous sacrifices. 
 
 ' ClaiHgcro, vol. ii. p. 84. 
 
V] 
 
 PERUVIAN SUN- WORSHIPPERS. 
 
 MS 
 
 Ibears 
 
 The Peruvian sun-worsmppers preserved the harmony 
 between their recurrent festivals and the true solar time, by 
 a ruder process of adjustment than that which was devised 
 by the remarkable proficiency of the Aztec priests in astro- 
 nomical science. Nevertheless, they too had their secular 
 festival of Raymi, held annually at the period of the summer 
 solstice. For three days previous a general fast prevailed, 
 the fire on the great altar of the sun went out, and in all 
 the dwellings gf the land no hearth was kindled. As the 
 dawn of the fourth day approached, the Inca, surrounded 
 by his nobles, who came from all parts of the country to 
 join in the solemn celebration, assembled in the great square 
 of the capital to greet the rising sun. The temple of the 
 national deity presented its eabtern portal to the earliest 
 rays, emblazoned with his golden image, thickly set with 
 precious stones ; and as the first beams of the morning were 
 reflected back from this emblem of the sun-god, songs of 
 triumph mingled with the jubilant shout of his worshippers. 
 Then after various rites of adoration, preparations were made 
 for rekindling the sacred fire. But this, Avith the Peruvians, 
 was done by a process far in advance of that retained by 
 the Aztec priests. The rays of the sun, collected into a 
 focus by a concave mirror of polished metal, were made to 
 inflame a heap of dried cotton ; and a llama was sacrificed 
 as a, burnt-offering to the sun. Only in the case of the sky 
 being overcast did the priests resort to friction for rekindling 
 tlic altar ; but the hiding of his countenance by the god of 
 day was regarded as little less ominous than the extinction 
 of the sacred fire, which it became the duty of the virgins 
 of the sun to guard throughout the year. A slaughter of 
 the llama flocks of the sun furnished a universal banquet; 
 and, while the god was propitiated by offerings of fruit and 
 flowers, there appear to have been some rare occasions on 
 which the sacrifice of a human victim — a beautiful maiden 
 or a child, — gave to this graceful anniversary a nearer resem- 
 blance to the appalling rites of Aztec worship. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
146 
 
 SACRIFICE OF THE WHITE DOG. [chap. 
 
 Amons: the northern Indian tribes some faint traces of the 
 annual festival of fire are discernible. At the sacrifice of 
 the white dog, the New Year's festival of the Iroquois, the 
 proceedings extended over six days ; and such were the obli- 
 gations which its rites imposed on all, that if any member 
 of a family died during the period, the body was laid aside, 
 and the relatives participated, in the games as well as the 
 religious ceremonies. The strangling of the white dog 
 destined for sacrifice was the chief feature of the first day's 
 proceedings. On the second day the two keepers of the 
 faith visited each house, and performed the significant cere- 
 mony of stirring the ashes on the hearth, accompanied with 
 a thanksgiving to the Great Spirit. On the morning of the 
 fifth day the fire was solemnly kindled by friction ; and the 
 white dog was borne in procession on a bark litter, until the 
 ofiiciating leaders halted, facing the rising sun, when it was 
 laid on the flaming wood and consumed, during an address, 
 which included a special thanksgiving to the sun, for having 
 looked on the earth with a beneficent eye.^ v 
 
 There is, perha^ j, no connection traceable between the 
 various rites thus described ; for it would be easy to find 
 their parallels among ancient and modern nations. They 
 pertained to the religious practices of the Chaldeans, to the 
 rites of Baal, and to other early forms of idolatry. Sabaism 
 is indeed the most natural form of false worship, commending 
 itself by many visible tokens, as of a divine influence and 
 power, to un instructed man ; and readily suggests the asso- 
 ciation of fire with the sun as its source. " Take ye good 
 heed unto yourselves," says the lawgiver of Israel to the 
 tribes in the wilderness, " for ye saw no manner of simiU- 
 tudo on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out 
 of the midst of the fire ; lest thou lift up thine eyes unto 
 heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and 
 the stars, oven all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to 
 worship them." This worship of the sun, though associated 
 
 * League qf Ui^ Iroquois, pp. 207-221, 
 
v.] SACRED FIRES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 147 
 
 with ancient rites of Asiatic nations, is not therefore neces- 
 sarily an evidence of the eastern origin either of the faith or 
 of the nations of the New World. But, in the sei /ices to 
 which it gave rise there, we have, at least, suggestive hints 
 of the links that bind together its own ancient and modern 
 tribes. Perhaps also they may supply a clew to the inter- 
 pretation of some of the obscure sculptures still remaining 
 on sites of the (jxtinct native civilisation of America, and 
 of rites once practised amid the sacred enclosures, and on 
 the altar-mounds which give such peculiar interest to the 
 river-terraces of the Mississippi valley. 
 
 Among the remarkable structures of the Mound- Builders, 
 reviewed in a subsequent chapter, their explorers have been 
 struck by the peculiarities of a certain class of mounds, 
 erected on the most elevated summits of outlying hills. 
 Concerning these " there can be no doubt that the ancient 
 people selected prominent and elevated positions upon which 
 to build large fires, which were kept burning for long periods, 
 or renewed at frequent intervals. They appear to have been 
 built generally upon heaps of stones, which are broken up and 
 sometimes partially vitrified. In all cases they exhibit marks 
 of intense and protracted heat."^ Such indications have been 
 supposed to mark ancient signal-stations adapted to the 
 telegraphic system still in use among native tribes, of send- 
 ing up columns of smoke as a warning that enemies are at 
 hand. But this " putting out fire," as it is called among the 
 Indians of the north-west, for the purposes of signal, is now 
 accomplished by the simple process of setting the short- 
 tufted buffalo grass in flame, and presents slight analogy 
 to the traces of intense fires on the ancient hill-mounds, 
 where the amount of scoriaceous material often covers a 
 large space several feet deep. 
 
 Perhaps greater importance is due to the employment of 
 the sam? method of fire-making at the present day among 
 the Indians of the north-west, as we see illustrated in ancient 
 
 * Ancxfnt Monumenfs of the Mississippi Valley, p. 183. 
 
 
I 
 
 148 
 
 INDIAN FIRE-MAKING. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Aztec paintings ; while the sun- worshippers of the southern 
 continent had devised a totally distinct method, correspond- 
 ing to that by which the Romans kindled the sacred fire. 
 Mr. Paul Kane thus describes the process employed by the 
 Chinooks on the Columbia River : — " The fire is obtained by 
 means of a flat piece of dry cedar, in which a small hollow 
 is cut, with a channel for the ignited charcoal to run over ; 
 on this the Indian sits to hold it steady, while he rapidly 
 twirls a round stick of the same wood between the palms of 
 his hands, with the point pressed into the hollow. In a 
 very short time sparks begin to fiiU through the channel 
 upon finely frayed cedar-bark placed underneath, which they 
 soon ignite. There is a great deal of knack in doing this, 
 but those who are used to it will light a fire in a very short 
 time. The men usually carry these sticks about with them, 
 as after they have been once used they produce the fire more 
 quickly."^ I witnessed the process successfully employed 
 under the most unfavourable circumstances, on one occasion 
 when camping out with Chippewa guides on the Lake of Bays, 
 in Western Canada. We had struck our tents, and were 
 making our way down the river, when a steady rain set in, 
 which continued throughout the day. We had to pass 
 several long portages, involving in each case the unloading, 
 and carrying over them, our canoes and baggage ; and on 
 one of these occasions, finding myself alone with my Indian 
 guide at the foot of a portage where we must necessarily be 
 detained a considerable time, I suggested to him by words 
 and signs, whether it were possible to kindle a fire. Rain 
 was falling in torrents, the trees were dripping, and the 
 grass and fallen leaves resembled a soaked sponge. But 
 Kinees^ set to work in Indian fashion, hunted out a pine- 
 knot, such as are of common occurrence in the Canadian 
 forest, where the tree itself has rotted away and left the 
 cores of its oldest branches like pins of iron. Having 
 secured this, and a piece of half-burned wood from under 
 
 ^ Wanderings of an Artist among the Indiana of North America, p, 188. 
 
v.] 
 
 SANCTITY OF FIRE. 
 
 une- 
 idian 
 the 
 iving 
 Inder 
 
 the remains of an old camp-fire, he next stripped ojff the bark 
 from the lee-side of a birch tree, and collecting a heap of the 
 dry inner bark, thin as paper, he carefully disposed it under 
 a cover of pine-bark, and placed over all a pile of chips cut 
 with his axe from the centre of a pine log. All being now- 
 ready, he frayed a handful of the birch bark into the con- 
 sistency of tow, and placing this on the charred wood, he 
 made the hard point of the pine-knot revolve in the wood 
 by means of a cord, while his bent position, pressing the 
 other end to his breast, protected it from the rain. In a 
 surprisingly short time he blew the tinder into a flame, ap- 
 plied it to the pile he had prepared, and nursing this with 
 chips and dry twigs, we were able to welcome our com- 
 panions to a blazing log fire, kindled under circumstances 
 wliich, even with the aid of flint and steel, would have 
 seemed impossible to the European woodsman. 
 
 The knowledge of this simple process, however acquired, 
 constitutes perhaps the oldest of all human traditions relat- 
 ing to the arts of life. A mode of obtaining fire nearly 
 equivalent to that of flint and steel has already been re- 
 ferred to as in use both among the Fuegians and Esquimaux ; 
 but the process of friction is also resorted to by the latter, 
 and with slight variations in the application of the prin- 
 ciple, it appears to be the recognised Indian mode of pro- 
 curing fire. Among all the Indian tribes not only was a 
 certain superstitious sanctity attached to fire, but they looked 
 with distrust on the novel methods employed l)y Europeans 
 for its production. When, in 1811, Elksatovva, the prophet 
 of the Wabash, — a brother of Tecumseh, the Shawnee 
 warrior, — was exhorting his tribe to resist the deadly en- 
 croachments of the white man, he concluded one of his 
 eloquent warnings by exclaiming : " Throw away your fire- 
 steels, and awaken the sleeping flame as your fathers did 
 before you ; fling away your wrought coverings, and put on 
 skins won for yourselves as was their wont, if you would 
 escape the anger of the Great Spirit." Nor is there wanting 
 
 1 
 
 ^^ j 
 
ISO 
 
 TIERRA DEL EUEGO. 
 
 . [chap. 
 
 among many Indians a conviction that the Ishkodaiwaubo, 
 or fire-liquid, is a malignant form of the same mysterious 
 element ; an evil medicine wrought for their destruction by 
 the white Manitou. 
 
 Various methods are thus traceable throughout the western 
 hemisphere for calling into existence the wondrous element, 
 so peculiarly distinctive of man. Yet even in these, common 
 relations of a very comprehensive character are apparent ; 
 while the Peruvian, with the solar mirror, stands apart alike 
 from the rude Indian and the cultivated native of the 
 Mexican plateau ; and far to the south of both, the Fuegian 
 finds in the natural products of his inhospitable clime a 
 means of fire-making analogous to that which the Shawnee 
 prophet taught his people to regard as one of the unhallowed 
 practices of the Whites. All alike exhibit man, even in 
 the rudest stago master of the same secret ; and turning to 
 many useful, a i even indispensable purposes, that which 
 no other animal can be taught to use, or scarcely even to 
 look upon without dread. 
 
 ■.l<ir 
 
TI.] 
 
 THE U::>J': OF TOOLS. 
 
 151 
 
 t 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CAN OK 
 
 ■M 
 
 THE USE or TOOlJj — T(X)L USING INSTINCT — IIUDIMENTABY STAGE OF ART — 
 PRIMITIVE KIVEB-OnAFT— THE GUANAHAKE CANOE— OCEAN NAVIGATfdN— AKRI- 
 CAN CANOE-MAKINO — OREGON CEDAR CANOES— NATIVE WHALERS OF THE PACIFIC 
 — PREHISTORIC BOAT BUILDERS -MAWAl'S CANOES — THE POLTNI.SIAN ARCHI- 
 PELAGO—THE TERRA AU8TRALI8 INCOGNITA— CANOE-FLEETS OP THE PACIFIC — 
 PRIMITIVE NAVKJATION— PORTABLE BOATS— THE CORACLE AND KAIAK— THE 
 PEBDVIAS BALSA — OCEAN NAVIGATORS. 
 
 The discovery of fire, and its application even to such 
 simple purposes of art is the hardening of the wooden spear, 
 or the hollowing of the monoxyh)Us canoe, suflfice to iQus- 
 trate the characteristics of man, not merely as a reasoning, 
 but also as a tool-using, or, as Franklin defined him, a tool- 
 making animal. Whilst, however, an innate instinct seems 
 to prompt him to supplement his helplessness l)y such 
 means, mechanical science, the industrial and the tine arts, 
 are all progressive developments which his intellect super- 
 induces on that tool-using instinct. And through all the 
 countless ages revealed to the geologist, with ever new 
 orders of successive life ; with beast, bird, crustacean, insect, 
 and zoophyte, endowed with wonderful constmctive instincts, 
 and perpetuating memorials of architecture and sculpture, of 
 which the microscope is alone adequate to reveal the exquisite 
 beauty and infinite variety of design : yet so thoroughly is 
 the use of tools the exclusive attribute of man, that the dis- 
 covery of a single artificially shaped flint in the drift or 
 
^£!' 
 
 «52 
 
 TOOL-USING INSTINCT. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 cave-breccia, is deemed proof enough that man has been 
 there. The flint implement or weapon lies beside bones 
 revealing species kindred to the sagacious elephant, or to 
 those of carnivora allied to the dog, with its wonderful 
 instincts bordering on reason and the forethought of ex- 
 perience ; yet no theorist dreams of the hypothesis that some 
 wiser Elephas primigenius, in advance of his age, devised 
 the flint spear wherewith to oppose more efiectually the 
 aggressions of the gigantic carnivora, whose remains abound 
 in the ossiferous caverns. 
 
 But if man was created with a tool-using instinct, and 
 with faculties capable of developing it into all the mechani- 
 cal triumphs which command such wonder and admiration 
 in our day, he was also created with a necessity for such. 
 ** The heritage of nakedness, which no animal envies us, is 
 not more the memorial of the innocence that once was ours, 
 than it is the omen of the labours which it compels us to 
 undergo. "With the intellect of angels, and the bodies of 
 eai'th-worms, we have the power to conquer, and the need 
 to do it. Half of the industrial arts are the result of our 
 being born without clothes ; the other half of our being 
 born without tools." ^ 
 
 With the growing wants of men as they gathered into 
 communities, novel arts were developed ; and the demands 
 of each new-felt want called into being means for its supply. 
 Artificers in brass and iron multiplied, and the sites of the 
 first cities of the earth were adorned with temples, palaces, 
 sculptured marbles, and cunningly-wrought shrines. But 
 whenever communities were broken up and scattered, the 
 elements of an acquired civilisation were inevitably left 
 behind. All but the most indispensable arts disappear 
 during the process of migration ; and although the wan- 
 derers might at length find a home in " a land whose stones 
 are iron, and out of whose hills thou maycst dig brass," 
 
 * WhatU Technology? an Inaugural Lecture. By George Wilson, M.D., Regius 
 Professor of Technology, Edinburgh University. 
 
VI.] 
 
 RUDIMENTARY STAGE OF ART. 
 
 153 
 
 into 
 anus 
 
 ppiy- 
 
 f the 
 aces, 
 But 
 tie 
 left 
 >pear 
 wan- 
 iones 
 
 3." 
 
 Icgius 
 
 no arts are so speedily lost among migratory tribes as 
 those of metallurgy. The hold of the accumulated wisdom 
 and experience of successive generations must be partial 
 and uncertain among an unlettered people, dependent on 
 tradition for all knowledge excepting such as is practi- 
 cally transmitted in the operations of daily experience. Few 
 indeed of all the wanderers from the old centres of European 
 civilisation to the wilds of the New World bring with them 
 the slightest knowledge either of the science or the practice 
 of metallurgy. Every chemical analyst knows what it is to 
 receive pyrites for silver, and ochres for iron or gold. Even 
 now the skill of the American miner has to be imported, and 
 the copper-miners of Lake Superior are chiefly derived from 
 Cornwall, Norway, or the mining districts of Germany. 
 
 With all our many artificial wants so promptly supplied, 
 even in the remotest colony, we are slow to perceive how 
 much we owe to the wondrous appliances of modern civilisa- 
 tion, and its division of labour. The Dutchman exported 
 his very bricks across the Atlantic, wherewith to found his 
 New Amsterdam on the banks of the Hudson; and the 
 English colonist, with enterprise enough to mine the copper 
 and iron of Lake Superior, still seeks a market for the ores 
 in England, and imports from thence both the engineers and 
 the iron wherewith to bridge his St. Lawrence. With such 
 facts before us in relation even to the systematic colonisation 
 of a highly civilised and enterprising commercial nation, it 
 is easy to understand what must have been the condition of 
 the earth's primeval wanderers. Their industrial arts were all 
 to begin anew ; and thus w^e see that the non-metallurgic 
 condition of primitive social life which is designated its 
 Stone Period, is not necessarily the earliest human period, 
 but only the rudimentary state to which man had returned, 
 and may return again, in the inevitable deterioration of a 
 migratory era.. 
 
 Evidence of various kinds still points to a cradle-land for 
 the human family towards the western borders of Central 
 
154 
 
 PRIMITIVE RIVER CRAFT. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 it 
 
 iii 
 
 ■ *-r -^y,: 
 
 Asia, and remote from its coasts : probably in that range of 
 country stretching between the head wateis of the Indus 
 and the Tigris. The earliest history of man that we 
 possess represents the postdiluvian wanderers journeying 
 eastward, and at length settling on a plain that long after- 
 war '<s remained one of the chief centres of history. But 
 the artii there developed belonged exclusively to a far inland 
 people ; and to this day the rude craft of the Tigris and 
 the Euphrates betrays a total absence of maritime instinct 
 or skill in navigation. The highest effort of their boat- 
 builders is little more than to construct a temporary raft, 
 on which themselves and their simple freight may float in 
 safety down the current of the great river. Similar rafts 
 are still in use by the Egyptians, formed of earthenware 
 jars bound together by withes and cords, and covered with 
 bulrushes. Like the corresponding river-craft of the Eu- 
 phrates, these are steered down the I^yile, never to return ; 
 for, on theii arriv'al at Cairo, the rafts are broken up, and 
 the jars sold in the bazaars. Such was the rudimentary 
 condition of navigation in that great Asiatic hive of nations 
 where man chiefly dwelt for centuries remote from the sea. 
 But from thence the wanderers were scattered over the face 
 of the whole earth. The primitive river-craft, therefore, 
 found an early development into sea-craft ; and oceanic 
 migration gave a new character to the wanderings of the 
 primeval nomads. Thenceforth, accordingly, those instinc- 
 tive tendencies began to characterise certain branches of 
 the human family, as leaders of maritime enterprise, 
 which may be tr-'ced under very diverse degrees of social 
 development : as in the Phoenicians, the Northmen, the 
 Malays, and the Polynesians ; while other tribes and nations, 
 such as the Celts and the Fijians, though living on the 
 coast, are tempted by no longings to voyage on the ocean's 
 bosom. 
 
 The islands of the Central American archipelago were the 
 first to reward the sagacity of Columbus, as he steered his 
 
VI.] 
 
 THE GUANAHANE CANOE. 
 
 155 
 
 course westward in search of the old East. The arts of their 
 simple natives accordingly attracted his attention ; and 
 although he found among thorn personal ornaments of gold, 
 sufficient to awaken the avaricious longings of the Spaniards 
 for that fatal treasure of the New World, yet practically 
 thev were in ignorance of metallurgic arts, and Jacked that 
 stimulus to ingenious industry which the requisites of 
 clothing call forth in less genial climes. The natives of 
 Guanahan^, or San Salvador, were friendly and gentle 
 savages, in the simplicity, if not in the innocence, of naked- 
 ness. Their only weapons were lances of wood hardened in 
 the fire, pointed with the teeth or bone of a fish, or i'urnished 
 with a blade made cither of the universal flint, or more fre- 
 quently, with thorn, from liic large tropical shells which 
 abound in the West Indian seas. They had learned to turn 
 the native cotton plant to economical account; but their 
 chief mechanical ingenuity was expended on the light 
 barks to which they gave the now universal name of 
 canoe. These were formed from the trunk of a single tree, 
 hollowed by fire, with the help of their primitive adzes 
 of flint or shell, and were of various sizes, from the tiny 
 bark only capable of holding its solitary owner, to the 
 galley manned by forty or fifty rowern, who propelled it 
 swiftly through the water with their paddles, and baled 
 it with the invaluable native calabash, which sujiplied 
 every domestic utensil, and rendered them indifferent to 
 the potter's art. 
 
 The canoe has a peculiar interest and volue in relation to 
 the arch«eology of the New World. With our wondrous 
 steam-ahips, wherewith we have bridged tho Athmtic, wo 
 are apt to lose faith in the capacity of uncivilised man for 
 overcoming such obstaclen as the dividing ' i'cjuih which ha<l 
 so long concealed America from the ancient world. But 
 the bark in which Columbus first crossed the Atlantic was 
 in no degree more capable of braving the ocean's terrors 
 than the navies of the Mediterranean had been a thousand 
 
156 
 
 OCEAN NA VIGATION. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 years before ; and the primitive canoes of the American 
 archipelago far more nearly resembled the Pinta, or the 
 Niila with its lateen sails, than the smallest of our modern 
 ocean craft. 
 
 Throughout the Polynesian archipelago, fragments of 
 foreign vocabularies are the chief traces of that oceanic mi- 
 gration by which alone the descendants of a common race 
 could people those distant islands of the sea. The recog- 
 nition of certain Malay and Polynesian words in the language 
 of the remote island of Madagascar is one striking illustra- 
 tion of what such intrusive linguistic elements imply. We 
 can thus trace the primitive voyagers, in their praus, or 
 slight Malayan vessels, navigating an ocean of three thou- 
 sand miles ; and perceive how, even by such means, the 
 ocean highway was open to the world's grey fathers in 
 remotest prehistoric times. 
 
 In this view of the case, the canoe of America is the type 
 of a developed instinct pregnant with many suggestive 
 thoughts for us ; and the traces of the primeval ship- 
 builder's art accumulate wonderfully so soon as attention is 
 drawn to it. On the banks of the Clyde, the voyager from 
 the New World looks with peculiar interest on the growing 
 fabrics of those huge steamers, which have made the ocean, 
 that proved so impassable a barrier to the men of the 
 fifteenth century, the easy highway of commerce and 
 pleasure for us. The roar of the iron forge, the clang of the 
 fore hammer, the intermittent glare of the furnaces, and all 
 the novel appliances of iron ship-building, tell of the 
 modern era of steam ; but, meanwhile, underneath these 
 very ship-builders' yards lie the memorials of ancient Clyde 
 fleets, in which we are borne back, up the stream of human 
 history, far into prehistoric times. The earliest recorded 
 discovery of a Clyde canoe took place in 1780, at a depth 
 of twenty- five feet below the surface, on a site known 
 by the apt designation of 8t. Enoch's croft. It was hewn 
 (jut of a single oak, and within it, ueur the prow, lay a 
 
v] 
 
 AFRICAN CANOE-MAKING. 
 
 T57 
 
 Fio. 50. —Clyde Stone Axe. 
 
 beautifully finished stone axe or celt, represented here (Fig. 
 50), doubtless one of the simple implements with which 
 this primitive ship of the Clyde had been fashioned into 
 
 shape. At least sixteen other canoes have 
 been since brought to light ; some of 
 them buried many feet underneath sites 
 occupied by the most ancient structures 
 of the city of Glasgow. It is difficult to 
 apply any satisfactory test whereby to 
 gauge the lapse of centuries since this 
 [)rimitive fleet plied in the far-inland 
 estuary that then occupied the area 
 through which the Clyde has wrought its 
 later channel ; but that the changes in 
 geological, no less than in technological, 
 aspects indicate a greatly prolonged interval, cannot admit 
 of doubt. Yet primitive man, alike in Africa and in the 
 Now World, is still practising the rude ingenuity of the 
 same boat-builder's art which the allophylian of the Clyde 
 pursued iu ^hat remote dawn. 
 
 The vessel in which Captain Speke explored Lake Tan- 
 ganyika was a long narrow canoo, hollowed out of the trunk 
 of a single tree. " These vessels," he says, " are mostly 
 built from large timbers, growing in the district of Ugubha, 
 on the western side of the lake. The savages fell them, lop 
 oti' the branches and ends to the length required, and then, 
 after covering the upper surface with wet mud as the tree 
 lies upon the ground, they set fire to, and smoulder out its 
 interior, until nothing but a case remains, which they finish 
 by paring out witli roughly constructed hatchets." 
 
 The islanders of the Southern Ocean, the natives of many 
 \>m\^ of the African continent, and the canoe-builders of 
 the New World, all employ the agency of fire to supplement 
 their imperfect tools. The stone axe of the St. Enoch's 
 croft canoe is formed of highly polished dark greenstone. 
 It measures five and a half inches in length by three and a 
 
158 
 
 OREGON CEDAR CANOES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 half in breadth ; and an unpolished band round the centre 
 indicates where it had been bound to its haft, leaving both 
 ends disengaged, as is frequently the case with the stone 
 hatchets of the American Indians and the Polynesians. But 
 the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 51) drawn from one 
 brought by Mr. Paul Kane from the Strait of De Fuca, 
 shows a more ingenious mode of hafting the stone adz 
 Such implements are in use by the Clalam Indians for cou- 
 structing out of the trunks of cedar trees, large and highly 
 ornamented canoes, in which they fearlessly face the dangers 
 of the Pacific Ocean. Some of their canoes, made out of 
 
 Fig. 51.— Clalam Stono Adze. 
 
 a single tree, measure upwards of fifty feet long, and are 
 capable of carrying thirty as a crew. They ha^'e thwarts 
 from side to side, about three inches thick, and their gun- 
 wales curve outwards so as to throw off the waves. Tiio 
 bow and stern rise in a graceful sweep, sometimes to a 
 height of five feet, and arc decorated with grotesque figures 
 of men and animals. The Indian crew kneel two and two 
 along the bottom, and propel the canoe rapidly with paddles 
 from four to five feet long, while a bowman and steersman 
 sit, each with his paddle, at either end, and thus equipped 
 these savages venture in their light bark upon the most 
 tempestuous seas. One of their most coveted prizes is the 
 whale, the blubber of which is r '-^ nhng with dried fish, 
 and esteemed no lesp highl'. '/ f> om M. n by the Esqui 
 maux. Since the encvoachmer' ^f f ' r , * m 8ettlement>» 
 
 hi; 
 
vi.l 
 
 NATIVE WHALERS OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 159 
 
 on tiieir territories their game lias greatly diminished, and 
 few whales approach the coast ; but, when an opportunity 
 offers, the Indians are enthusiastic in the chase, and the 
 process by which their prize is secured furnishes an interest- 
 ing illustration of native ingenuity and daring. When a 
 whale is seen blowing in the offing, they rush to their 
 canoes and push off, furnished with a number of large seal- 
 skin bags filled with air, each attached by a cord to a 
 barbed spear-head, in the socket of which is fitted a handle 
 five or six feet long. Upon coming up with the whale, the 
 barbed heads are driven into it, and the handles withdrawn ; 
 until the whale, no longer able to sink from the buoyancy 
 of the air-bags, is despatched and towed ashore. By just 
 such a process may the whale have been stranded at the 
 base of Dunmyat, in times when an ancient ocean washed 
 the foot of the Ochil hills, and the old Scottish whaler 
 revelled in spoils such as now reward the enterprise of the 
 savages of the North Pacific coast. 
 
 It is thus seen to how large an extent the primitive canoe 
 may have sufficed for remote ocean expeditions. The old 
 navigators of the Clyde were prol)al)ly not a whit less fearless 
 than the native whalers ot the Oregon coast ; and they had to 
 face dangers fully equal to any of those to wliich voyagers of 
 the Pacific are exposed, whenever they navigated the lochs 
 and island channels towards its mouth, or ventured beyond it, 
 to face the gales and currents of the Irish Sea. The Clyde has 
 supplied ail unusually rich store of illustrations of primitive 
 ship-carpentry ; but the disclosures of another Scottish locality 
 also merit notic*^ liere. The carse of Falkirk is intimately as- 
 sociated with some very memorable events of Scottish history. 
 It is traversed l>y the vallum and chain of forts reared by 
 LoUiuii Urbieuh the Roman propra3tor of Antoninus Pius in 
 the early part of the second century, and is rich in memorials 
 of many later incidents. But underneath lie far older 
 records. In the year 172G, a sudden rise of the river 
 CWron undermined a portion of its banks, and exposed to 
 
il 
 
 IBi 
 
 .iji 
 
 1 60 
 
 rREJIISTORIC BOAT BUILDERS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 view a canoe of unusually lai ■ dimensions, fashioned with 
 care from a single oak-tree, ana lying at a depth of fifteen 
 feet beneath successive strata of clay, shells, moss, sand, 
 and gravel. The Statistical Accounts record the discovery, 
 in the vicinity of Falkirk, of another ancient boat buried 
 thirty feet below the surface, in the same carse from which 
 the remains of a mammoth were exhumed in excavating 
 the Union Canal in 1821. Those traces of primitive human 
 art have already been referred to in the PrehiHoric Annals 
 of Scotland, but a further discovery in the same locality 
 confers a fresh interest upon them. Soon after the publica- 
 tion of that work, when on a visit to Falkirk, I was shown 
 
 Fio. 52.— Qmngcuiouth bkiill. 
 
 by Dr. G. Hamilton a human skull, which at once attracted 
 my attention from its marked correspondence to the brachy- 
 cophalic crania of ancient British graves. It is figured 
 here. Fig. 52, from a careful drawing executed at a later 
 date. The facial bones and the whole of the base are want- 
 ing, but enougli remains to show that it is well developed, 
 according to a type of crania of the early Scottish tumuli. 
 But what confers a special interest on it is, that it was 
 found in the same alluvial carse-land as the ancient canoes 
 and the fossil bones of the Elephas primigenius, twenty 
 feet beiow the surface, in a bed r/f shell and gravel, when 
 digging the area of the luige Grangemouth lo(;k of the 
 Union Canal, on tho 29th of June J 843. Buried at such a 
 
VI.] 
 
 MAWArS CANOES. 
 
 i6i 
 
 depth in the detritus of the river- valley, it may be regarded 
 as a record of the men of the period when the valleys of 
 the Forth and Carron were navigable arms of the sea ; and 
 may even belong to the epoch when their shores were 
 peopled by a race of fishermen contemporaneous with the 
 whalers of Dunmyat and Blair-Drummond Moss, and with 
 the monoxylous boatmen of the Clyde. 
 
 Among many of the islands of the Southern Ocean the 
 boats are simple wooden «anoes, pointed at eitlier end, and 
 propelled through the water with the paddle ; ])ut the barks 
 of the true Polynesians are more elaborate and ingenious. 
 They frequently are double, with a raised platform or 
 quarter-deck ; and are invariably provided with an outrigger, 
 an article seemingly of Malay origin. So essential, indeed, 
 is the latter deemed for safe navigation, that the most re- 
 markable characteristic recognised by the Taliitians, when 
 Captain Cook's vessels first revealed to them the wonders of 
 European civilisation, was the want of the indispensable 
 outrigger. Throughout the mythology of oceanic Polynesia, 
 Mawai, the upholder of the earth, and the revealer of the 
 secrets of the future, plays a prominent part. In one of his 
 prophecies, Mawai foretold that a ship such as had never 
 been seen before, a canoe without outriggers, should in pro- 
 cess of time come out of the ocean. But to the mind of a 
 Tahitian, an ocean canoe without an outrigger was so impos- 
 sible a thing that they laughed their pn)phet to stv.vu ; whoiv- 
 upon Mawai launched his wooden dish on the waters, whioU 
 swam without outrigger, and the Tahitiaus thoncoforw awl 
 looked for the strange marvel v>f the tuUviggcvlesH oanoo. 
 Cook's ship was regainloil as tl\o t\\ltilu\o\\t of Mawai'a 
 prediction, and still English vessels fti"0 freipK^itly called 
 Mawai 'h eatiooR. The ui)thie )n\)phecy seema in reality 
 one of those vague traditions of nneeatral intercoui'so \\\\\\ 
 other n\end)ers of the human family, auelv as, aimnig the 
 Aztecs, led to the belief that the ships of (\)rte8 had w- 
 tm-ned f\>nn the somvo of the risitxg «uii with Qvietzaleoutli 
 
 m 
 
 
rS 
 
 m 
 
 t6a 
 
 THE POLYNESIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 the divine instructor of their forefathers in the arts of 
 civilisation. 
 
 The population of the great Polynesian archipelago pre- 
 sents many highly interesting and suggestive features, bear- 
 ing closely on the question of oceanic migration. The area 
 of Polynesia proper extends from the small islands westward 
 of the Pelews to Easter Island, and from the Mariannes 
 and the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand on the south. 
 In Tongatabti and Easter Island, as well as in the Micro- 
 nesian Rota, Tinian, Ualan, and throughout the Caroline 
 group, remains of massive stone buildings, the origin or use 
 of which is wholly unknown to the natives, reveal traces of 
 an extinct civilisation, and afford some possible clew to the 
 strange ethnological phenomena of the Oceanic archipelago. 
 Professor Dana, who, as geologist to the United States 
 Exploring Expedition, had abundant opportunities for obser- 
 vation, canu^ \\\ the conclusion llial an innuenso arcjiin Ihc 
 Pacific hiiH lor ages been gradiinlly subsiding ; and that the 
 numerous Lagoon Islands ninrk tlie spots where what were 
 once the highest peaks of mountains have Hiially lienn sub- 
 merged. Mr. Hah', the philologist of the same expedition, 
 gathered sufficient data from a European who had heen 
 resident for a time on the islanrl of Hojllibe, Jn the Caroline 
 archif>elago, and from his own obHerviltlons, to m\h\)i \s\\\\ 
 ^kt the reiL-a-kaliie stone structures, both Unhin and Bonalje, 
 were erected when the sites on which tin)' hIiiim) w«<)'U |(| || 
 Jifileient lev l from whai they now occupy. "At prosetit 
 tbey are actually in the water ; what were once paths, are 
 Aov paasE^es for canoes, and when the walls luu bfukuil 
 %mmk the woiaer tmsers the enclosure." 
 
 Sudi an idea m3tm& like a glimpse of far-rea<^;hJng tJUtliH 
 relatiTe to tke unwritten history of that recently (JXplorcMJ 
 BoutbRn Ocaean. Wnen Columbus discovered the inhinilH 
 <if IIk New yiftMi tefemid them lym^ in thickly cluHtornd 
 ffTOoye, and ere long he reached tht mainland of a great conti 
 licnt, which lay in close vicinity to its island aaUjllites. But 
 
y*4- 
 
 THE TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA. 
 
 163 
 
 it was altogether different with the Columbus of the Southern 
 Ocean. A strange Antarctic, as well as an Australian conti- 
 nent lay there also, awaiting new discoverers; but far 
 beyond their coasts the Pacific and Southern groups dotted 
 the wide expanse of ocean like the stars that lose themselves 
 in the abysses of night. We read with wonder, as strange 
 as that which rewarded the revelations of the Western 
 Ocean in the closing years of the fifteenth century, of the 
 voyages and discoveries of Byron, Waliis, Carteret, and of 
 Cook and later explorers of the South Pacific Ocean. When 
 Captain Cook reached the Cape on his return from his second 
 expedition, in 1774, he had saiied no less than twenty thou- 
 sand leagues, through unknown seas, since he left the same 
 point twenty months before. His grand quest was in search 
 of the Terra Australis Incugnita, a continent which it was 
 assumed must exist in the Southern Ocean, as a counterpoise 
 to tlic hmd occupying so large a portion of the northern 
 hemisphere ; but instead of this, the voyagers sailed for days 
 and weeks througli vast seas, arriving by chance, now 
 and again, at some little island, cut off from all the v/orld 
 besides, yet Icnanted by Imman beings. And, as later 
 yOFflgprs 1)0 VG noted, on sailing on< e more into the limitless 
 liofboii, litiiii' UtuMwi' hiUfj hitorvfd, in which many Imudrrds 
 of pirn have l)eeli t)t|ss(i(|, aiiothei js]nnd-speck appears; 
 ami iiof, only is it iijiuiljii(3d, Ijui »i/J)jdJjrH f/f ejjeech. mytho 
 Mljlif j rtii4 ilia pimiHAe Ingenuity of iiativa aha, all concur 
 III lil'ovljiy fl miUiuUwlly of origin. The idea eiiggestcid 
 
 to the sagaciui/a liutuiiillsL 1h mw ^i^ij kmliUH' t*t iljuHijtH} 
 (ili'f lllllllfi tlio Pacific Ocean Is pto el/jjiieiilly im nmi (it 
 aiibsl(|oU'!0, wliote altetuly uul ii\\\^ iitiplements in hM /mm) 
 stjillB, lull |)r()l)fd)ly carvings, sculpturos, ami uytiii m^hU^a- 
 lural structures, lie lujie<1 uiuhj- (j/o inm] l)fccc(ft of a 
 rnodern cietaeean formatjoii, ihd]U^A It may hi, til yilit!$iii 
 the intelligent rcsearcli (if a romoio fuliu»», wIk'H I1j<« tiil^m 
 • III linniiaphere shall once niofo \mmm llie iiroa ill nu}i 
 sideuco ; ami iku wJttfiJs id iim Pacific mil m^^lMUi ttm 
 
 '^ 
 
 '% 
 
 /;^ 
 
4JW«*ipi*W**|*p^**WL 
 
 mmmmm 
 
 164 
 
 CANOE- FLEETS OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 §i 
 
 summits of mountain-chains in the Terra Australis of that 
 coming time. 
 
 We must not be misled here, any more than in our esti- 
 mate of possible Atlantic voyagers, by the undue contempt 
 with which the European is apt to gauge the capacity of 
 primitive island mariners. At Vanikoro, the native canoe is 
 a mere rudely-fashioned trunk of a tree, sufficiently grooved 
 to afford foot-hold ; yet to this the islander attaches an out- 
 rigger, spreads a mat for his sail, and boldly launches forth 
 into the ocean, though few Europeans would be induced to 
 venture in such a craft on the stillest pool. Dr. Pickering, 
 when illustrating the ideas of ocean migration which he 
 was led to form from intimate observations of widely-scattered 
 and very diverse branches of the human family, remarks : 
 " Of the aboriginal vessels of the Pacific, two kinds only are 
 adapted for long sea-v^ ages : those of Japan, and the large 
 double canoes of the Society and Tonga groups. In times 
 anterior to the impulse given to civilised Europe through 
 the noble enterprise of Columbus, Polynesians were accus- 
 tomed to undertake, sea- voyages nearly as long, exposed to 
 equal dangers, and in vessels of far inferior construction. 
 However incredible this may appear to many, there is suffi- 
 cient evidence of the fact. The Tonga people are known to 
 hold intercourse with Vavao, Samoa, the Fiji Islands, 
 Rotuma, and the New Hebrides. But there is a document, 
 published before those seas were frequented by whalers and 
 trading-vessels, which shows a more extensive aboriginal 
 acquaintance with the islands of the Pacific. I allude to 
 the map obtained by Forster and Cook from a native of the 
 Society Islands, and which has been shown to contain not 
 only the Marquesas, and the islands south and east of Tahiti, 
 but the Samoan, Fiji, and even more distant groups. 
 Again, in regard to the principles of navigation, the Poly- 
 nesians appear to possess a better knowledge of the subject 
 than is commonly supposed, as is shown from recent dis- 
 coveries at the Hawaiian Islands. One of the Hawaiian 
 
VI.J 
 
 PRIMITIVE NAVIGATION. 
 
 »(>5 
 
 headlands has been found to bear the name of The 
 start ng -place for Tahiti: the canoes, according to the 
 account of the natives, derived through the missionaries, 
 leaving in former times at a certain season of the year, and 
 directing their course by a particular star." 
 
 But leaving such glimpses of oceanic migration, there is 
 another aspect in which the ingenuity of the primitive boat- 
 builder of the Now World is exhibited, which is highly 
 characteristic in itself ; and also worthy oi notice from 
 some of its elements of comparison with the primeval in- 
 genuity of the nncient work! Throughout the islands of 
 the American archipelago, and among the southern tribes, 
 where large and freely navigable rivers abound, the native 
 canoe was made of various sizes, uut invariably of the trunk 
 of a tree hollowed out, and reduced to the required shape. 
 Such appears to be the normal type of the primitive mari- 
 ner's craft; but where obstacles interfere with its accomplish- 
 ment, the rudest races devise means to obviate the difficulty. 
 The Calif ornian canoe is a mere float made of rushes, in the 
 form of a lashed-up hammock ; while those of the Navigator 
 Islands, in the Pacific, — so called by La Perouse, their first 
 discoverer, owing to the graceful shape and superior work- 
 manship of their canoes, —are formed of pieces of wood sewed 
 together by means of a raised margin. In this the skilful 
 carpenter is guided rather by utility or taste, than by neces- 
 sity, for the Navigator Islands are fertile and populous, and 
 clothed to the summits of their lofty hills with luxuriant 
 forests and richly laden fruit-trees. 
 
 But across the wide area of the northern continent of 
 America, which stretches from the Guli of the St. Lawrence 
 to the Pacific, a difiierent combination of circumstances has 
 given bent to the development of native ingenuity in the 
 art of boat-building. In the St. Lawrence i tself, and through- 
 out all its principal tributaries, navigation is constantly 
 impeded by waterfalls or rapids, which constitute an insur- 
 mountnldc barrier to virdinaiy navigation. In like manner 
 
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 WIUTM.N.V. MSM 
 
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j66 
 
 PORTABLE BOATS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 1- J 
 
 I" 
 
 f,\ 
 
 m 
 
 the country along the northern and southern shores of L?ike 
 Ontario, the valley of the Ottawa,, reaching towards the 
 Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, and much of the route be- 
 tween that and the Kocky Mountains, is a chain of lakes or 
 interrupted river navigation. Hence all the principal routes 
 of travel con'^ist of lines of lake and river united by " por- 
 tages," or carrying-places, over which the canoe and all its 
 contents have to be borne by the native boatmen, or voy- 
 ageurs, as the French Canadians and Half breeds of the 
 traders and Hudson's Bay Company are called. For such 
 mode of transport the wooden canoe would be all but im- 
 practicable ; and accordingly, probably ages before voy- 
 ageurs of European descent had learned to handle such 
 canoes, the native Indian devised for himself his light and 
 graceful bark-boat, made from tho rind of the Betvla pajpy- 
 racea, or canoe-birch, diicli grows in great abundance, and 
 where the soil is good often acquires a height of seventy 
 feet. 
 
 Portable boats were not unknown to the ancient tribes of 
 the British Isles. In Mr. Shirley's Account of the Dominion 
 of Farney in Ulster , a curious example of a portable boat 
 is described, formed of the trunk of an oak tree, measuring 
 twelve feet in length by three feet in breadth, hollowed out, 
 and furnished with handles at both ends, evidently for 
 facility of transport from one loch to another. The district 
 is one abounding with small lakes, such as the ancient Irisli 
 chiefs frequently selected as chosen retreats in which to 
 construct their crannoges, or other insulated strongholds, 
 beyond the reach of hostile surprise. But a closer analogy 
 may bo traced between the Indian birch-bark canoe and the 
 coracle of the ancient Briton described by Julius Coosar ns 
 a frame of wicker-work covered with skins. The same kind 
 of canoe is in use at the present day on the lakes in the 
 interior of Newfoundland, where the Montngnars from the 
 Labrador coast frequently spend the summer. Their bircli 
 canoes arc carefully secured for the return voyage to the 
 
VI.1 
 
 THE CORACLE AND KAIAK. 
 
 167 
 
 mainland ; and a deer -skin stretched over a wicker frame 
 supplies all the requisites for inland navigatTon. But the 
 true counterpart to the British coracle is the Esquimaux 
 kaiak, which consists of a light frame covered with skin ; 
 and as this is brought over the top, and made to wrap 
 round the body of its occupant, it enables the amphibious 
 navigator, both of the North Pacific and the Greenland 
 seas, to brave a stormy ocean in which no open boat could 
 live. 
 
 Hamilco, the Carthaginian, according to Festus Avienus, 
 witnessed the ancient Britons " ploughing the ocean in a 
 novel boat; for, strange to tell, they constructed their 
 vessels with skins joined together, and often navigated the 
 sea in a hide of leather." Upwards of four centuries later, 
 Coesar found the same stormy sea navigated bj^ the southern 
 Britons in their coracles. When, in the sixth century, in 
 the lives of the Irish Saints, we once more recover some 
 glimpse of maritime arts, it is in the same coracles — some- 
 times made of a single hide, and in other casec, such as the 
 ocean currach of St. Columba, of several skins sewed to- 
 gether, — that the evangelists of lona crossed the Irish sea, 
 visit J d the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and even, as there 
 is reason to believe, preceded the Northmen in the discovery 
 of Iceland. The old Scottish historian Bellcnden, writing 
 in the sixteenth century, asks : " How can there be greater 
 ingyne than to make a boat of a bull's hyde bound witli 
 nothing but wands ? This boat is called a currock, with 
 which they fish, and sometimes pass over groat rivers." 
 This primitive boat is even now to be met with in tlie river- 
 estuaries of Wales, and on various parts of the Irish coast : 
 the counterpart of the Esquimaux haiakt or the haydar with 
 which the Aleutian Islanders navigate the intervening ocean 
 between Asia and America. Dr. Pickering remarks, on en- 
 counterina: the latter to the north of the Strait of De Fuca : 
 — "P'rom its lightness, elegnnce, and the cnpacity of 
 being rendered impervious to both air and water, I could 
 
1 68 
 
 THE PERUVIAN BALSA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 not but admire its perfect adaptation to the purposes of 
 navigation ; for it seemed almost to enable man to take a 
 place among the proper inhabitants of the deep. Such ves- 
 sels are obviously fitted to cope with the open sea, and, so 
 far as the absence of sails permits, to tra\^erse a considerable 
 expanse of ocean." 
 
 It is a curious fact, well worthy of notice, that through- 
 out the American continent, seemingly so dependent on 
 maritime colonisation for its settlement by man, the use of 
 sails as a means of propelling vessels through the water 
 appears to have been almost unknown. Prescott, when 
 describing the singular suspension bridges, made of the tough 
 fibres of the maguey, with W"hich the Peruvians spanned the 
 broad gullies of their mountain streams, adds : " The wider 
 and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas, a kind of 
 raft still much used by the natives, to which sails were 
 attached, furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of 
 navigation among the American Indians."^ This statement 
 of the historian is too comprehensive; for, although the 
 Peruvians were so essentially an agricultural and unmaritime 
 people, the use of sails in their coasting trade constitutes one 
 of their noticeable points of superiority over other nations of 
 the New World. Attention is specially directed to this by 
 ftn incident recorded in the second expedition for the dis- 
 covery of Peru preparatory to its conquest. Bartholomew 
 Kuiz, the pilot of the expedition, after lingering on the coast, 
 near the Bay of St. Matthew, stood out into the ocean, when 
 he was suddenly surprised by the sight of a vessc? in that 
 strange, silent sea, seemingly like a caravel of considerable 
 size, with its broad sail spread before the wind. " The old 
 navigator was not a little perplexed by this phenomenon, 
 as he was confident that no European bark could have been 
 before him in these latitudes; and no Indiiin nation yet dis- 
 covered, not even the civilised Mexican, was ac^^uaintc'd 
 with the use of sails in navigation." As ho drew near, it 
 
 * Conqmat of Peru, vol. i. B. i. oli. ii. 
 
VL] 
 
 OCEAN NA VIGATORS. 
 
 169 
 
 proved to be a native halsa^ formed of huge timbers of light, 
 porous woo J, and with a flooring of rccds raised above them. 
 Two masts sustained the large, square, cotton sail ; and a 
 moveable keel and rudder enabled the boatman to steer. On 
 board of it Kuiz found ornaments displaying great skill, 
 wrought in silver and gold, vases and mirrors of burnished 
 silver, curious fabrics, both cotton and woollen, and a pair 
 of balances made to weigh the precious metals. Here were 
 the first undoubted evidences of the existence of that strange 
 seat of a native American civilisation, among the lofty 
 valleys of the Southern Andes, which he was in search of. 
 The balsa's crew included both men and women, who carried 
 with them provisions for their voyage, and had come from 
 a Peruvian port some degrees to the south. Like older 
 voyagers of the Mediterranean, the Peruvian pilots were 
 wont to creep timidly along the shore*; but the Spaniards 
 encountered them in the open Pacific, where no European 
 prow had ever sailed. Caught by a sudden gale their bark 
 might have been borne far off among the islands that stud 
 the Southern Ocean, and here was the germ of a race of 
 ishuidcrs, to whom, after a few generations, the memory of 
 their Peruvian ancestry would have survived only as some 
 mythic legend, like the Manco Capac of their own lucas, or 
 the Mawai of the Polynesian archipelago. 
 
170 
 
 MAN THE ARTIFICER. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TOOLS. 
 
 MAN TJIR ATlTIFICEn- THK lAW OF llEASON— INDIOENOCS nACES— MAN's CAPACITY 
 FOB DETERIORATION— WHAT IS A 8T0NE-PEKI0D ?— MATERtaM OP PRIMITIVE 
 ART— SUCCESSION OF RACES— INDICATIONS OF ANCIENT TRADE— THE SHO- 
 SHONE INDIAN— TEXAS IMPLEMENTfj— MODES OF HAi<TINa— DEEIl'S-HORN SOCKETS 
 —STONE KNIVES— THLINKEVS OF ALASKA— METALS OF A STONE PERIOD— ARTS 
 OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC— MALAYAN INFI UKNOB— FIJIAN CONSTRUCTIVE SKILL — 
 FIJIAN POTTERY— SLOW MATURITY OF RACES— THE FLINT-EDGED SWORD— THE 
 LEAGUE OF THE FIVE NATIONS— IROQUOIS PREDOMINANCE— WORK IN OBSIDIAN 
 AND FLINT— HONDURAS FLINT IMPLEMENTS— SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL— COL- 
 LISION OF RACES— FATE OP INFERIOR RACES. 
 
 As the type of oceanic migration, the canoe claims a pro- 
 minent place among the primitive arts of man. In it we 
 see the germs of commerce, maritime enterprise, and much 
 else that is indispensable to any progress in civilisation. 
 But the primitive ship implies the existence of tools ; and, 
 as we have seen, probably owed its earliest fashioning to the 
 useful service of fire. Intelligent design was working out 
 the purposes of reason by processes which, even in their 
 most rudimentary stage, reveal the characteristics of a new 
 order of life, compared with which the tool-born ant, the 
 spider, and the bee, seem but as ingenious self-acting 
 machines, each made to execute perfectly its one little item 
 in the comprehensive plan of creation. 
 
 ^Vs industrial artificers, the creatures so far beneath us in 
 the scale of organisation seem often to put to shame our 
 most perfect workmanship ; yet provided with no other 
 instruments than the eye and the hand, but guided by that 
 intelligent reason which distinguishes man from the brutes, 
 we see him, even as an artificer, presenting characteristics 
 
vn.] 
 
 THE LA W OF REASON. 
 
 which arc altogether wanting in the lower animals. Labour 
 is for them no sternly imposed necessity, but an inevitable 
 process, having only one possible form of manifestation ; 
 producing in its exercise the highest enjoyment the labourer 
 is capable of ; and in its results leading our thoughts from 
 the wise, unerring, yet untaught worker, to Him whose 
 work it is, and of whose wisdom and skill the workman- 
 ship, not less than the workman, appears a direct manifesta- 
 tion. It is not so with man. The capacity of the work- 
 man is a divine gift, but the work is his own, and too often 
 betrays, in some of its most ingenious de\Tices and results, 
 anjrthing rather than a divine origin. 
 
 If ours be not the latest stage of being, but is to be suc- 
 ceeded by "new heavens and a new earth," marvellous 
 indeed are the revelations which posthistoric strata have 
 yet to disclose. But even they will scarcely suffice to 
 reveal the most striking characteristics of a being on whom 
 the economy of nature reacts in a way it never did on 
 living being before ; in whom all external influences arc 
 subordinated to an inner world of thought, by means of 
 which he is capable of searching into the past, anticipating 
 the future, of looking inward, and being a law unto him- 
 self His nature embraces possibilities of the widest con- 
 ceivable diversity, for his is no longer the law of instinct, 
 but of reason : law, therefore, that brings with it conscious 
 liberty, and also conscious responsibility. 
 
 But an important and seemingly conflicting clement 
 arises out of the capacity of man for moral progression, to 
 which some ethnologists fail to give due weight. A sug- 
 gestive thought of Agassiz, relative to certain real or sup- 
 posed analogies between the geographical distribution of 
 species of simiae, and especially the anthropoid apes, and 
 certain inferior types of man, sufficed as the nucleus of 
 Gliddon's elaborate monkey-chart, in the Indujenous Races 
 of the Earth, illustrative of the geographical distribution of 
 monkeys in relation to that of certain types of men. Not- 
 
 i! 
 
 Jul 
 
iw«j7;!^i?r^-9if39^»?r'i^.s^'^'fw^^ 
 
 172 
 
 INDIGENOUS RACES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 witlistanding the very monkey fying process to which some 
 of the illustrations of inferior human types have been sub- 
 jected in this pictorial chorogi iphy, the correspondences 
 are not such as to carry conviction to most minds. But, 
 assuming, as a supposed reductio ad ahsurdum, the descent 
 of all the diverse species of monkeys from a single pair, Mr. 
 Gliddon thus sums up his final observations : "I propose, 
 therefore, that a male and female pair of the ' species ' 
 Cynocephalus Hamadryas. be hsnceforward recognised as 
 the anthropoid analogues of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet; 
 and that it must be from these two individuals that, owing 
 to transplantation, together with the combined action of 
 aliment and climate, the fifty-four monkeys represented on 
 our chart have originated. It is, notwithstanding, suffi- 
 ciently strange, that, under such circumstances, this * prim- 
 ordial organic type ' of monkey should have so highly im- 
 proved in Guinea, and in Malayana, as to become gorillas 
 and chimpanzees, orangs and gibbons ; whereas on the con- 
 trary, the descendants of * Adam and Eve ' have, in the 
 same localities, actually deteriorated into the most degraded 
 and abject forms of humanity." In reality, however, what- 
 ever may be said about the possibility of such simian devel- 
 opment, possible human deterioradon is an inevitable 
 attribute of the rational, moral free-agent man : capable of 
 the noblest aspirations and of wondrous intellectual advance- 
 ment, but also with a capacity for moral degradation such 
 as belongs to him alone. The one characteristic, no less 
 than the other, separates man from all those other living 
 creatures that might appear in some respects gifted with 
 endowments akin to his own. 
 
 Man, as a tool-using artificer, seems to have a rival m the 
 beaver, felling its timber, carrying its clay, and building its 
 dam ; in the spider weaving its web, more perfect thf^n any 
 net of human fisher ; and even in the squirrel with its pro- 
 vident hoard of well-secured wt .ter store, or the monkey 
 employing the cocoa-nut and other shell-fruit as missiles. 
 
vii.l MAN'S CAPACITY FOR DETERIORATION. 173 
 
 I m the 
 ig its 
 
 in any 
 
 |s pro- 
 mkey 
 
 [ssiles. 
 
 But in such artificial appliances there is nothing obsolete, 
 nothing inventive, nothing progressive ; whereas the child 
 born amid the most highly developed civilisation, — the son 
 of a Watt, a Stephenson, a Brunei, — if reared from infancy 
 to manhood without any knowledge of mechanical science 
 or the industrial arts, would start anew from the rudi- 
 mentary instincts of the tool- using animal, and expend his 
 ingenuity, not perhaps without some traces of hereditary 
 mechanical genius, on tlie primitive materials of flint, stone, 
 horn, or shell. 
 
 Man depends for all on his teachers ; and when mortd 
 and intellectual deterioration return him to the tooUess con- 
 dition of the uncivilised nomad, he is thrown back on the 
 resources of his infantile reas(m and primary instincts, and 
 reaches that point from which the prime v^al colonist has had 
 to start anew in all lands, and work his way upwards, through 
 stone, and bronze, and iron periods, into the full co-opera- 
 tion of a civilised community, treasuring the experience of 
 the past, and making for itself a new and higher future. 
 
 The subdivisions of the archaeologist designated The 
 Stone Period, The Buonze Period, and The Iron Period, 
 have been brought into some discredit, in part by what, as 
 a general system, must be regarded only as a hypothesis, 
 being assumed as involving facts of no less indisputable 
 and universal application than the periods of the geologist. 
 In part, also, their non acceptance is due to wilful errors of 
 their impugners ; and to the want of appreciation of the 
 inevitable characteristics which pertain to transitional 
 periods, such as chiefly come under the European archaeolo- 
 gist's observation. So far as the American Indian is con- 
 cerned, the New World is in the first transitional stage still : 
 that of a stone-period, very partially afi'ected by the intro- 
 duction of foreign-wrought weapons and implements ; and 
 scarcely indicating, among the numerous tribes of North 
 America, any traces of the adoption of a superinduced 
 native metallurgy. Such therefore appears to be a condi- 
 
"-'■lJ|!l!'.«V«mUJ-U.ii»MIH4.B 
 
 ■''.-iTJ^'T^Vv^' - " .^I^I^T-.'rT^ 
 
 174 
 
 WHAT IS A STONE-PERIOD i 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 tion of things, the comparison of which with traces of a 
 corresponding stage in the early ages of Britain, may be of 
 use in clearing the subject from much confusion. 
 
 The special characteristics of the native civilisation which 
 the early Spanish adventurers found already existing in 
 Mexico and Central America, will come under review at a 
 later stage ; but it cannot admit of question that throughout 
 the whole Red Indian forest-area metallurgic arts were un- 
 known, as they still are among the Indians of the North- 
 west after an intercourse of upwards of three centuries 
 and a half with Europeans. Copper, indeed, was wrought 
 among them, but it was used without any application of 
 fire, and as what maybe most fitly designated a mere malle- 
 able stone. In Britain, as I have already observed, " the 
 working of gold may have preceded the age of bronze, and 
 in reality have belonged to the Stone-Period. If metal 
 could be found capable of being wrought and fashioned 
 without smelting or moulding, its use was perfectly com- 
 patible with the simple arts of the Stone-Period. Masses 
 of native gold, such as have been often found both in the Old 
 and the New World, are peculiarly susceptible of similar 
 appHcation by the workers in stone ; and some of the 
 examples of Scottish gold personal oi-naments fully corre- 
 spond with the probable results of such an anticipatory use 
 of the metals." * The idea thus formed from an examina- 
 tion of some of the most artless examples of primeval 
 British goldsmiths' work, has been amply confirmed by ob- 
 serving the mode of using the native copper, and the traces 
 of its former working, among the American Indians. Even 
 now their highest attainment in metallurgic skill extends 
 only to grinding the iron hoops with which the Hudson's 
 Bay fur-traders supply them, into knives, arrow-heads, and 
 the like substitutes for the older implements chipped out of 
 flint, or ground from the broken stone. Further oppor 
 tunities will occur for illustrating this subject ; which is 
 
 ^ /Ve/tw)<wic ^Hnafa o/(Sco<fo»«i, 2d Ed. vol. i. I). 331. 
 
 Ml 
 I 
 
VII.] 
 
 MATERIALS OF PRIMITIVE ART 
 
 ^75 
 
 full of interest to the ethnologist, from the light it thr^ \vs 
 on the rate of progress of a barbarous people towards civili- 
 sation ; or rather on the capacity of man in a certain unde- 
 veloped stage, for witnessing the most remarkable products 
 of the useful arts, without evincing any desire to master them. 
 After centuries devoted to the elucidation of Roman 
 remains, and the assignment to Roman artificers of much 
 which more discriminating classification now awards to 
 totally different workmen : the discovery of weapons and 
 implements of stone, shell, or bone, in nearly every quarter 
 of the globe, has at length excited a lively inlerest among 
 the 9 rcb geologists of Europe. Made, as these primitive 
 relics are, of the most readily wrought materials, and by 
 what may be styled the constructive instincts, rather than 
 the acquired skill of their rude artificers, they belong to 
 one condition of man, in relation to the progress of civilisa- 
 tion, though pertaining to many periods of the world's 
 history, and to widely separated areas. In one respect, how- 
 ever, those relics possess a peculiar value to the ethnologist. 
 The materials employed in their manufacture have within 
 themselves, most frequently, the evidence of their geographi- 
 cal origin, and in some of them also of their era. The 
 periods to which numerous European relics pertain may 
 frequently be determined, like those of older strata, by the 
 accompanying imbedded or buried fossils. The bones of 
 the Bos primige7iius have been found indented with the 
 stone javelin of t)ie aborigines of Northern Europe, and dug 
 up even in places of regular British sepulture. Those of 
 the Megaceros Hihernicus seem, in like manner, to be traced 
 to a period of ancient Irish colonisation, when flint knives 
 and stone hatchets prove the simple character of the native 
 arts ; though even then they furnished the material for con- 
 structing one of the oarHest musical instruments. Yet other 
 evidence shows that the same gigantic Irish deer was con- 
 ~ temporary with the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, and 
 the fossil carnivora of the caverns. The Bos longijroiiSt 
 
 
~^1 
 
 176 
 
 SUCCESSION OF RACES 
 
 [chap. 
 
 doubtless, traces its descent from an ancestry not less an- 
 cient ; but from its wild herds the native Briton derived 
 his domesticated cattle, and its most recent relics pertain to 
 an era later than the Koman times. The ornamented tusks 
 of the wild boar, the bones of the brown bear, the teeth and 
 skulls of the beaver, carvings wrought from the walrus 
 ivory, skates formed from the metatai'sal and metacarpal 
 bones of the red-deer and small native horse, with numerous 
 kindred relics of palaeontology within the era of the occu- 
 pation of the British Islands by man, all serve to assign 
 approximate dates to the examples of his ancient arts which 
 they accompany. 
 
 Thus within the historic period, as in prior geological 
 eras, the progress of time is recorded by the extinction of 
 races. The advent of man was speedily marked by the 
 disappearance of numerous groups of ancient life which per- 
 tain to that transitional era where archaeology begins ; 
 thouo:h the most recent discoveries of works of art along 
 with the fossil mammals of the drift, confirm, by new and 
 striking evidence, the fact that man entered on this terres- 
 trial stage, not as the highest in an entirely new order of 
 creation, and belonging to an epoch detached by some over- 
 whelming catastrophe from all preceding periods of organic 
 life : but as the last and best of an order of animated beings 
 whose line sweeps back into the shadows of an unmeasured 
 past. 
 
 The disclosures of British tumuli, along with rarer chance 
 deposits, show that the Celtic Briton was an intruder upon 
 older allophylian occupants ; while the presence of the 
 Roman is recorded for us by the extinction of an ancient 
 fauna, as well as of whole BritisI) tribes. What the Roman 
 partially accomplished, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Nor- 
 man completed : displacing the Briton everywhere but from 
 the fastnesses of Wales ; and gradually extirpating all but 
 such animals as are either compatible with the development 
 of social refinement, or are worthy of protection as a means 
 
VII.] 
 
 INDICATIONS OF ANCIENT TRADE. 
 
 177 
 
 along 
 
 of ministering to man's pleasures. And as it has been 
 in the Old World, so it is in the New. The progress of 
 the European colonists not only involves the extirpation 
 alike of the wild animals and the forests which formed 
 their haunts ; but also the no less inevitable disappear- 
 ance of the aborigines who made of them a prey. Thus 
 the grave-mound of the Red Indian, and the relics of 
 his simple arts, become the memorials of an extinct order of 
 things no less clearly defined than the post-tertiary fossils 
 of the drift. 
 
 But while the remains of extinct species thus serve to 
 determine the periods at which certain eras had their close, 
 the traces of living or extinct fauna are no less valuable as 
 fixing the geographical origin of the ancient colonists, amid 
 whose relics they are found : just as the elephants, the 
 camels, the monkeys, and baboons of the Nimrod obelisk, or 
 the corresponding sculptures on the walls of Memphis or 
 Luxor, indicate the countries whence tribute was brought, 
 or captives were carried off, to aggrandise their Assyrian or 
 Egyptian conquerors. Among relics which help to fix the 
 geographical centres of ancient arts, the sources of early 
 commerce, or the birthplaces of migrating races, might bo 
 noted the tin and amber of the Old, and the copper of the 
 New World. So also the Mexican (>l)sidian, tho clay-slate 
 of Columbia, the favourite red pipe- one, or (Jatlinite, of 
 the Coutcau des prairies, and the pyru and conch-shells 
 of the Gulf of Florida, indicate varied sources of arjuient 
 trade or barter, and lines of migration extending over fully 
 twenty degrees of latitude. Objects wrought in the favour- 
 ite materials brought from such remote sources have 
 been found minscliug with relics of ancient tribes in the 
 islands and on the north shores of the great Canadian lakes, 
 along the southern slo[)C of the same water-shed whence the 
 Moose and the Abbitibbe pour their waters into the frozen 
 sea of Hudson's Bay. 
 
 The designation of any primitive stage of industrial arts 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
 > Si 
 
178 
 
 7 HE SHOSHONE INDIANS. 
 
 fcHAP. 
 
 as a Stone-Period signifies, as has been already sufficiently 
 indicated, that condition in which, in the absence of metals, 
 and the ignorance of the simplest rudiments of metallurgy, 
 man has to find materials for the manufacture of his tools, 
 and the supply of his mechanical requirements, in the com 
 moner objects which nature places within his reach. 
 
 Nothing can well be conceived mnch more artless than 
 some of the stone implements still in use among savage 
 tribes of America. Yet it is worthy of note that it is not 
 ..xxiid the privations of an Arctic winter, but in southern 
 latitudes, with a climate which furnishes abundant resources 
 for savage man, that the crudest efforts at tool-making are 
 found. In the report of the United Stares Geological Sur- 
 vey for 1872, which embraces Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, 
 and Utah, Professor Joseph Leidy furnishes an interesting 
 account of numerous implements of art, rude as any found 
 in the drift, met by him during a survey of the Bridgers 
 Basin at the base of the Unitali Mountains, in Southern 
 Wyoming. " In some places the stone implements are so 
 numerous^ and at the same time are so rudely constructed, 
 that one is constantly in doubt when to consider them as 
 natural or accidental, and when to view them as artificia]."^ 
 But with them are mingled implements of tlie finest finish. 
 The Shoshoncs who liount the region have no further know- 
 ledge of them than is indicated in their belief that they were 
 a gift of God to their ancestors. But m^my arc sharp, and 
 fresh in appearance, as if recently worked from tlie parent 
 block ; and though others are worn, and decomposed on 
 the sarface, Professor Leidy does not assume more t' a 
 date of " centuries back " for the oldest of them. For, in- 
 deed, he found that the Shoshone Indians had in use a stone 
 implement of so simple a character that he sa^s, "had I not 
 observed it in actual use, and had noticed it among the 
 materials of the buttes, or horizontal strata of indurated 
 clays and sandstone, I would have viewed i^ as an accidental 
 
 ' U. 8, Ofoloffkal Survey, 1872, p. Oi)2. 
 
VI 
 
 '•1 
 
 TEXAS IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 179 
 
 iuish. 
 know- 
 
 werc 
 ), ami 
 »arei)t 
 ccl on 
 a 
 or, iii- 
 
 stoiic 
 
 T not 
 ig the 
 
 iratod 
 Idcntal 
 
 spavvl. It consists of a thin segment of a quartzite boulder, 
 made by striking the stone with a smart blow. It is called 
 a teslioa, and is employed as a scraper in dressing buffalo 
 skins." Subsequently he discovered a precisely similar im- 
 plement, together with some perforated tusks of the elk, in 
 an ancient Indian grave. 
 
 No such rude implements are found among the produc- 
 tions of the arctic tool-makers. The necessities of the 
 Esquimaux, in thuir clothing and hunting, beget systematic 
 liabits of industry and matured skill. The elaborate decora- 
 tions of their skin and fur dresses, the carving of their ivory 
 and bone implements, and the ingenuity lavished upon their 
 children's toys, all prove how thoroughly the a)sthetic, as 
 well as the industrial arts, are developed by the stimulus 
 which man's necessities create. In Fig. 58, an axe, or war- 
 
 h'lo. m. -Tfxiis Stoiif Axu, hiifteJ. 
 
 club, is shown, procured from the Indians of the Rio Frio, in 
 Texas. The blade is a piece of trachyte, so rudely chipped 
 that it could scarcely attract attention as having been sub- 
 jected to any artificial working, but for the club-like haft 
 into which it is inserted. I am indebted to Mr. Evans for 
 the use of the woodcut. He describes the haft as formed of 
 some indigenous wood, which has evidently been chopi)ed 
 into shape by means of stone tools. Nothing ruder i^as been 
 brought to liffht amon<j: the earliest d iclosures of drift or cave 
 deposits. Another Texas implement in the Smithsonian col 
 lection at Washington is a roughly shaped Hint blade, which, 
 as shown of the full size in Fig. 54, closely resembles a fami- 
 liar class of oval implements of the river-drift. It is curious, 
 indeed, to note the undesigned correspondence between the 
 
 L 5! 1*' 
 
 % '. j 
 
 '■A 
 
 ' i' '-■' 
 
 M. 
 

 II 
 
 180 
 
 MODES OF IIAFTING. 
 
 [cHAr 
 
 implemeuts of races equally widely separated by time and 
 space. Several examples of stone celts or hatchets attached 
 to their handles have been recovered in British and Irish 
 bogs, and in the submerged lake-dwellings of Switzerland. 
 All alike show a wooden haft pierced so as to admit of the 
 insertion of the stone blade, which must have been secured 
 
 Kid. 64. -ToxiiH inint Imiilcniotit. |. '', ' , 
 
 by a withe or thong tiglitly bound round it, according to a 
 fawliion still practised in Anmicji, and among the ishind.^ of 
 the Pacific. Hut in s[)ite of this ligature, the wedge-like 
 form of the axe must have liad a tendency to cleave the haft, 
 and 80 to loosen its hold. The experience of the ancient 
 liakc-dw oilers led them to counteract this by inserting the 
 
VII.] 
 
 DEER'S HORN SOCKETS. 
 
 i8i 
 
 stone blade in a socket of deer's horn, the end of which is 
 usually cut into a squared tenon designed to fit into a mor- 
 tice in the handle. This must have accomplished the desired 
 purpose, as examples of such deer's-horn sockets are common 
 on the sites of lake-dwellings. During the last visit of Pro- 
 fessor Agassiz to his native Swiss Cant jn, and the village 
 parsonage of Concise where his early years were passed, he 
 obtained from Lake Neuchatel a valuable collection of stone 
 implements, along with pottery and other illustrations of 
 the arts and habits of the Lake-dwellers, already referred 
 
 Pifl. r)5. Clilsol Mill iloiii'H-lioni soi'kot, CoiicIro. 
 
 to. Some of those are specially interesting as exami)le3 of 
 tlic mode of hafting implements of flint and stone. Fig. 55 
 shows a perforated deer's-horn socket with a chisel of green 
 stone inserted in it. The exposed part of tlie blad(^ measures 
 nearly two inches in length. It must have boen secured 
 in its liaft by a strong cement, such as some of the Pacific 
 Ishmders employ at the present day in fastening their axe- 
 heads to bone and wooden handles. In some cases a tine of 
 the deer's antler has been left so as to form the handle of the 
 hammer or hatchet. A rare example of this type is described 
 
 1% 
 
 vi ; 
 
 
I 
 
 182 
 
 STONE KNIVES. 
 
 []CHAP. 
 
 by Dr. Clement, among numerous varieties recovered from 
 diftorent localities on Lake NeuchiUel. The horn of the 
 stag was also at times converted into a formidable weapon 
 by retaining the brow-antler as the offensive weapon, and 
 detaching the rest, so as to leave only the main portion of 
 the horn as a handle. Fig. 56, also from Lake Neuchdtel, 
 may be described as a stone knife. The blade, which is of 
 
 Fio. f)0. — StDiiP Knife, Coiiclsi!. 
 
 polished serpentine, measures 3i inches in the exposed part, 
 and is still secure in its horn haft. In the collection of Mr. 
 J. H. Blake of Boston are flint implements recovered from 
 an ancient Peruvian tomb on the Bay of Chacota, attached 
 to their liafts by a tough gi'cen cement. 
 
 It is remarkable to notice how rarely the simple process 
 of perforating the blade for the reception of the handle was 
 resorted to, even where the workmen were in the habit of 
 perforating both bone and stone implemerits for other pur- 
 poses. This was no doubt portly due to the frangible 
 character of much of the material in which they wrought ; 
 
VII.] 
 
 THLINKETS OF ALASKA. 
 
 ■«%. 
 
 but even after the primitive metallurgist bad mastered the 
 art of alloying ard casting bis bronze, it seems to have been 
 long before he learned to fit a handle to his axe or hammer 
 by perforating the blade or hammer-head. Some of the 
 most usual modes of attaching the axe or hatchet to a haft 
 of wood or bone, in use amon;^the islanders of the Pacific, are 
 shown in a group of implements from the collection of the 
 Scottish Antiquaries, Fig. 57. They bear a close resemblance 
 
 to others described by Mr. 
 William H. Dall as pertain- 
 ing to the Thlinkcts, a coast 
 tribe of Alaska, not far to the 
 south of Behring's Strait.^ 
 But tools and weapons of 
 stone, as well as of native 
 copper, are already becom- 
 ing rare among the tribes 
 of the North Pacific Coast, 
 owing to the introduction 
 of iron by the Russian and 
 Hudson's Bay traders. Pi e- 
 vious to this change, the 
 Alaskans knew metal only 
 in the form of cold-wrought 
 native copper, as among 
 all the native tribes north 
 of the Mexican Gulf. Such 
 a recognition of some con- 
 venient uses to which the 
 malleable native metals 
 could be applied as substitutes for stone, can scarcely be 
 regarded as even an initial step in the transition towards 
 the first true metallurgic period. This cannot be considered 
 to have been introduced until the native copper-worker liad 
 perceived the wonderful transformations which could bo 
 
 ' Alaska and Iti* Rcsoiircfn, \\ 418. 
 
 Fio. 67.— Souf' PiMiitio StoHo Imploments. 
 
 
i84 
 
 METALS OF A STONE PERIOD. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 il 
 
 wrought by fire, and had learned at least to melt the pure 
 metal, and to mould the weapons and implements he re- 
 quired ; if not to harden it with alloys, and to quarry and 
 smelt the unfamiliar ores. To this stage the savage tribes of 
 the New World have not even now attained, after intercourse 
 with Europeans for more than three centuries and a half. 
 There, on the contrary, the Indians, who originally possessed 
 only weapons, implements, and personal ornaments of bone, 
 shell, flint, and stone, or at most of native copper rudely 
 hammered into shape, are still seen after an interval of up- 
 wards of three centuries of European colonisation and traffic, 
 without the slightest acquired knowledge of working in 
 metals. They do, indeed, possess numerous metal imple- 
 ments and weapons, which, as their greatest treasures, they 
 freely lavish on the loved or honoured dead; but such 
 traces of metallurgy aflford no proof of acquired native art. 
 The copper kettles of the ancient Huron graves on the 
 Georgian Bay, or the Chinook coffin-biers on the Columbia 
 river, were brought, not from the copper regions of Lake 
 Superior, but from France, London, or Liverpool, along 
 with the beads, knives, hatchets, and other objects of barter, 
 by means of which the fur- traders still carry on their traffic 
 with the Indian hunter. At most this only proves that a race, 
 still in its stone-period, and possessinr no greater skill than 
 is required to grind an iron hoop into lance or arrow heads, 
 has been brought into contact with a civilised people, fami- 
 liar with metallurgy and many acquired arts, such as the 
 musket and the rifle may most aptly symbolise. 
 
 The same diversity of inventive power and {irtistic skill is 
 discernible among the Indians of North America as has 
 been already referred to in comparing the arts of other un- 
 civilised races. In some constructive skill predominates, 
 while others manifest a peculiar aptitude for imitative art. 
 The powers of imitation common to the barbarous and the 
 civilised nations of the New World, are specially worthy of 
 note ; and will jigain come under review when referring to 
 
vn.] 
 
 ARTS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. 
 
 X85 
 
 the pipe manufacture, so curiously typical of American art. 
 But meanwhile an equally instructive illustration of what may 
 thus be designated aesthetic and constructive instincts may 
 be selected from the diversely gifted islanders of the South- 
 ern Pacific. On the extreme western verge of the Polynesian 
 archipelago lie the Fiji Islands, occupied by a people re- 
 markable among the islanders of the Pacific alike for phy- 
 sical and intellectual peculiarities. The Fijian physiognomy 
 is descril)ed as presenting general characteristics of debase- 
 ment, when compared with that of the true Polynesian, and 
 the entire proportions and contour of their figure are 
 markedly inferior to those of the Friendly and Navigiitor 
 islanders. This is the more remarkable in a people dwelling 
 in the midst of abundance, and enjoying an unusual variety 
 of choice articles of food. Their ferocious and treacherous 
 habits, however, and the hideous customs of cannibalism, 
 and systematic parricide, with attendant crimes inevitable 
 in such a social condition, have rendered the Fijian Islands, 
 which seem fitted by nature to be abodes of happiness, 
 among the most wretched scenes of moral degradation. 
 Nevertheless it is in this strange island-group that the arts 
 of the South Pacific have their highest development. 
 
 The Papuans, or Negrillos, appear to be the true inven- 
 tive race, from whom the Fijians, who ;.rc unquestionably 
 allied to them in blood, acquired, elaborated, and greatly 
 improved many ajiplications of art and skill. The Papuans 
 of New Caledonia, though superior in physical charac- 
 teristics to other islanders of the Negrillo type, present some 
 curious analogies to the Australian, especially in their mode 
 of sepulture. Fig. 58 is an example of their ing(;nuity in 
 adapting a sinqjle stone chisel to its haft, so as to serve 
 as a boat-carpenter's adze. But the ingenious Negrillo 
 is altogether unsocial and prone to isolation, and the 
 Fijians manifest an equally strong disinclination to 
 leave their island-home. It required, therefore, the inter- 
 vention of a migratory or aggressive^ race to difluse their 
 
 
i86 
 
 MALA VAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 acquired knowledge and skill ; and this is supplied by the 
 Malayans, who are found in contact with many natitms, and 
 are of a roving disposition, the proper children of the sea. 
 " Naturally," says Dr. Pickering, " the most amiable of man- 
 kind, they are free from antipathies of race, are fond of 
 novelty, inclined rather to follow than to lead, and in every 
 respect seem qualified to become a medium of communica- 
 tion between the different branches of the human family." 
 Such an impressible race of mediators being found, a curious 
 light is thrown on the diffusion of knowledge and the primi- 
 tive arts throughout the widely-scattered island groups of 
 
 Fio. 5S.— Stone Adze, New Caleduiiiii. 
 
 the Southern Pacific, where almost every Polynesian art, it 
 is said, can be distinctly traced to the Fiji Islands, while 
 the Fijian himself is so averse to roam. 
 
 Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the races of the Malay archi- 
 pelago, dwells on the marked differences, physically, intel- 
 lectually, and morally, between the Papuan and the Malay. 
 The central home of the Papuans is New Guinea and some 
 of the adjacent islands ; but the same ethnical characteristics 
 are traceable over the islands to the east of New Guinea, 
 as far as the Fijis. " The Papuan," Mr. Wallace remarks, 
 " has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates 
 his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil, 
 
VII.] 
 
 FJJIAN CONSTRUCTIVE SKILL. 
 
 187 
 
 with elaborate carving ; a habit which is rarely found among 
 tribes of the Malay race." In the affections and moral sen- 
 timents, on the contrary, the Papuans compare unfavourably 
 with the Malays, who are gentle and passive in all their 
 social relations. But this is properly traced to their listless, 
 apathetic character ; while the vigour of the uncivilised 
 Papuan manifests itself in the unrestrained display of 
 every emotion and passion, even among the women and 
 children, and in violent collisions, inevitable in the social 
 life of ':his savage race. Among such a people the best 
 and the worst characteristics are often strangely inter- 
 mingled. The Fiji Islanders use the bow and throw thi3 
 javelin with great dexterity ; but their peculiar and distin- 
 guishing weapon is a short missile club, which all habitually 
 wear stuck in the belt, the symbolic national instrument of 
 assassination. Many analogies of history tend, however, to 
 refute the error of assuming the occurrence of moral degra- 
 dation, even when manifested in parricide, cannibalism, 
 and systematic treachery and assassination, to be necessarily 
 incompatible with such intellectual development as distin- 
 guishes the Fijians from the Malays or other islanders of 
 the Pacific. Of all the aborigines of the Pacific, the fero- 
 cious New Zealander has proved most capable of civilisa- 
 tion ; and is found moreover to possess a traditional poetry 
 and mythical legends of a highly striking and peculiar 
 character. And turning from still undeveloped races of the 
 world, we have only to study deeds perpetrated by the 
 pagan Saxon, the Hun, or the later Dane and Norseman, to 
 see in what hideous aspects the energies of a rude people 
 may be manifested, who are nevertheless capable of becom- 
 ing leaders in the civilisation of Europe. To judge by the 
 monkish chronicles, no Fiji cannibal could surpass, either 
 in savage atrocity or in hideousnoss of aspect, the Hun- 
 garian or Northman from whom the proudest of Europe's 
 Dobles claim descent. The chroniclers of Germany, 
 France, and Italy, dwell on the savage fury of the Huns ; 
 
 'I 
 
 
 

 Mil 
 
 i88 
 
 FrjIAN POTTERY. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 and tliG liturgy of the Gallican Church of the nmth ceii 
 tury preserves the memorial of the pagan Northmen's 
 ravages, in the supplication added to its litany : A furore 
 Normawioi'um libera nos. 
 
 It is obvious therefore that the savage vices of the 
 Fijians are perfectly compatil)le with considerable skill in 
 such arts as pertain to theiv primitive and insular condi- 
 tion. Their musical instruments are superior to those of 
 the Polynesians, and include the Pan-pipe and others un- 
 known in the isLinds beyond their range. Their jiottery 
 also exhibits great variety of form, and includes examples 
 of vessels combined in groups, presenting a curious cor- 
 
 I'la. 5i>.— Fijian Pottery. 
 
 respondence to similar productions of Peruvian art. Their 
 fishing-nets and lines are remarkable for neat and skilful 
 workmanship, and they carry cultivation to a considerable 
 extent. " Indeed," remarks the ethnologist of the United 
 States Expedition, in summing up the characteristics of the 
 Fijians, " we soon began to perceive that the people were in 
 possession of almost every art known to the Polynesians, 
 and of many others besides. The highly-finished work- 
 manship was unexpected, everything being executed until 
 recently, and even now for the most part, without the use 
 of iron. In the collection of implements and manufactures 
 brought home by the Expedition, the observer will dis- 
 
 iiiiiii 
 
1..] 
 
 SLOW MATURITY OF RACES. 
 
 189 
 
 tinguisli in the Fijiun division somctliing like a school of 
 arts for the other Pacific ishmds." Fie:. ^^ shows two 
 characteristic specimens of their pottery selected from the 
 Smithsonian collections at Washington. They are ex- 
 tremely well burnt, and finished with a bright glaze. One 
 of them illustrates a class of double vessels suggestive of 
 certain analogies with a familiar style of Peruvian pottery ; 
 and the prevailing characteristics of the whole collection 
 confirm the superiority ascribed to tne Fijian artificer. 
 In such a strangely -gifted savage race we see the degrada- 
 tion of which human nature is susceptible; and at the same 
 time recognise germs of a constructive and artistic capacity 
 capable of development into many marvellous mauifesta 
 tions, if once subjected to such infiuences as those which 
 changed the merciless pirate of the northern seas into the 
 refined Norman, the chivalrous crusader, and the imaginative 
 troubadour. 
 
 The native races of America are neither devoid of energy 
 nor ingenious artistic skill ; and the progress attained by the 
 Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as by the nations of Cen- 
 tral America, proved their capacity for advancement in the 
 arts of civilisation. But the fiite which has everywhere 
 befallen the Red Indians when brought into direct contact 
 with European settlers, shows how impossible it is to 
 abruptly bridge over the gulf whicli separates the infancy 
 of nations from a maturity like that to whicli the rude 
 Saxon and Northman attained through the schooling of 
 many centuries. The Aztecs at the time of the Mexican 
 conquest were probably not ruder than the first xVngle and 
 Saxon colonists. They were certainly no cruder than the 
 Northmen of the eighth century. But they were far in 
 advance of the northern tribes from whicli, according to 
 Aztec traditions, they traced their descent. — —— ^z—r— ^— ---~ 
 
 Among the barbarous races of the northern continent, the 
 tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, though scarcely rising 
 above the hunter stage, oifer a subject of study of peculiar 
 
 \ i 
 
 i 
 
 !f 
 
 
ii;i <'.!i 
 
 
 lili; lii 
 
 190 
 
 T/fE FLINT-EDGED SWORD. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 value in reference to the ethnology of the New World. In 
 the great valley of the St. Lawrence, at the period of earliest 
 European contact with its native tribes, we find this con- 
 federacy of Indian nations in the most primitive condition 
 as to all knowledge of progressive arts ; but full of energy, 
 delighting in military enterprise, and amply endued with the 
 qualities requisite for effecting permanent conquests over a 
 civilised but unwarlike people. Nor did the primitive arts 
 of the Iroquois prevent the development of incipient germs 
 of civilisation among them. Agriculture was systematically 
 practised ; and their famous league, wisely established, and 
 maintained unbroken through very diversified periods of 
 their histor}% exhibits a people advancing in many ways 
 towards the initiation of a self-originated civilisation, when 
 the intrusion of Europeans abruptly arrested its progress, 
 and brought them in contact with elements of foreign pro- 
 gress pregnant for them only with sources of degradation 
 and final destruction. 
 
 The historian of the Iroquois,^ when describing their 
 simple arts and manufactures, remarks, that in the western 
 mounds rows of arrow-heads or flint-blades have been found 
 lying side by side, like teeth, the row being about two feet 
 long. " This has suggested the idea that they were set in a 
 frame, and fastened with thongs, thus making a species of 
 sword." ^ In this description we cannot fail to recognise the 
 mahguahuitl, or native sword of Mexico and Yucatan. In 
 the large canoe with its armed crew, first met off* the latter 
 coast, Herrera tells us the Indians had "swords made of 
 wood, having a gutter in the forepart, in which were sharp- 
 edged flints strongly fixed with a sort of bitumen and 
 thread." Among the Mexicans this toothed blade was 
 armed with the itzli, or obsidian, capable of taking an edge 
 like a razor ; and the destructive powers of this formidable 
 weapon are frequently dwelt upon by the early Spaniards. 
 Among the ruins of Kabah, in Yucatan, the attention of 
 
 * Lewis H. Morgan : League of the Ho d6-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. 
 
VII.] 
 
 THE LEAGUE OF THE FIVE NATIONS. 
 
 191 
 
 Stephens was attracted by the protruding corner of a hirge 
 sculptured slab, the basso-relievos on which consist of an 
 upright figure having a lofty plume of feathers falling to 
 his heels ; wliile another figure kneels before him holding in 
 his hands the very same weapon, with its flint or obsidian 
 blades projecting from the wooden socket. The idea it 
 suggests is not necessarily that assumed by Stephens : that 
 the sculptors and architects of the great ruins of Central 
 America and Yucatan were the same people whom the 
 Spaniards found there on their landing. The sculpture may 
 be of a greatly older date. On its lower (compartment is a 
 row of hieroglyphics ; and the suppliant attitude of the 
 armed figure is rather suggestive of a record of conquest 
 over some barbarian chief of Mexican or more northern 
 tribes, of whom the flint- edged sword-blade was the most 
 typical characteristic. Nevertheless, there is a singular in- 
 terest in the simple chain of evidence, thus confirmatory of 
 the Aztec traditions of original migration, and the subjuga- 
 tion of the elder civilised race of Anahuac by northern 
 warriors : which leads us, step by step, from such rude arts 
 us those of the Iroquois, and relics of other barbarous tribes 
 in western sepulchral mounds, to the Mexican armature of 
 the era of the conquest, and artistic records of the lettered 
 architects of Yucatan. 
 
 The history of the Iroquois and their simple arts, illus- 
 trates with peculiar aptness the unwritten chronicles of the 
 New World. In their rude state thev achieved a remark- 
 able civil and military organisation, and acquired more 
 extensive and enduring influence than any nation of native 
 American lineage, excepting the civilised Mexicans and 
 Peruvians. Their own traditions pointed to an era when 
 they migrated from the northern shores of the St. Lawrence 
 into that region to the south and oast of Lake Ontario, 
 where they dwelt through all the period of their authentic 
 history ; though two members of the league, the Senecas 
 and Onondagas, claimed to be autochthones, sprung from 
 
 ,1: i 
 
 If, «, 
 % f 
 
 ii 
 
192 
 
 IROQUOIS PREDOMINANCE. 
 
 [CHAr. 
 
 
 the soil of that Iroquois territory. The league embraced 
 the Oiieidas, Ouondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Mohawks, 
 all united in a strictly federal union ; and to this the Tus- 
 caroras were admitted, on their expulsion from North Caro- 
 lina in 1715. The claim of a common origin advanced by 
 a people occupying territory so far to the south, throws an 
 interesting light on the migrations of Indian tribes. It is 
 confirmed by the character of their language, and received 
 practical recognition in the assignment of a portion of the 
 Oneida territory for their occupation. In the seventeenth 
 century the Iroquois were the great aggressive nationality 
 of the continent to the north of Mo.^ico. In the very be- 
 ginning of that century. Captain John Smith, the founder 
 of Virginia, encountered their canoes on the upper part of 
 the Chesapeake Bay, bearing a band of them to the terri- 
 tories of the Powhattan confederacy. The Shavvuees, Sus 
 quehannocks, Nanticokes, Miamis, Delawares, and Miusi, 
 were, one after another, reduced by them to the condition 
 of dependent tribes. Even the Canarse or Long-Island 
 Indians found no protection from them in their sea-girt 
 homo beyond the Hudson ; and their power was felt from 
 the St. Lawrence to Tennessee, and from the Atlantic to 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 How long before the discovery of this vast region by Eu- 
 ropeans, it had l)een in occupation by those who claimed to 
 be its autochthones, we have no other knowlediife tliiin llioir 
 own traditions of migration. But so far as arts are any 
 evidence of national progress, they were then in tlieir in- 
 fancy. The region tliey occupied offered no advantages for 
 the inauguration of a coi)per or bronze era, such as tliosc of 
 Lake Superior or the Soutlicrn Andes supplied to their 
 ancient possessors. Of working in nic*^'Us they kn'nv 
 nothing ; and only supplemented their primitive imple 
 ments, wrought in stone, Hint, horn, bone, and wood, by 
 barter with the European intruders. Nevertheless, for 
 nearly two centuiies, the Indians of the Five Nations, as 
 
vn,] 
 
 WORK IN OBSIDIAN AND FLINT, 
 
 193 
 
 they were called before the addition of the Tuscaroras, 
 presented a sturdy and unbroken front to the encroach- 
 ments alike of Dutch, French, and British colonists. But 
 their hostility was concentrated in opposition to the French 
 nation ; and as the rival colonies of France and England 
 were long nearly balanced, it is not unjustly affirmed by 
 the historian of the Iroquois, that France owed the final 
 overthrow of her magnificent schemes of colonisation in 
 North America to their uncompromising antagonism. 
 
 Among the Mexicans the arts of a true stone period had 
 been carried to the highest perfection, along with a develop- 
 ment of those of their bronze age. On the northern frontier 
 of Mexico, towards the head waters of the Great Barauca, 
 is the Cerro de Navajas, the " Hill of Knives," where, before 
 the conquest, obsidian was mined for manufacturing pur- 
 poses : like the chert and hornstone of the Flint-Ridge pits 
 of Kentucky and Ohio. Examples of elaborately-worked 
 obsidian and flint, and of polished implements and orna- 
 ments of stone, executed by Mexican artificers, rival the 
 finest specimens recovered among the relics of Europe's 
 neolithic period. The Christy collection is specially rich in 
 objects of this class. One flame-shaped arrow-head chipped 
 with the nicest art, is evidently executed as a display of 
 lapidary skill. Another fine spear-blade, made of a semi- 
 o})alescent chalcedony which occurs as concretions in the 
 trachytic lavas of Mexico, measures eight inches long, and 
 is supposed to have served as a state halberd, as it is 
 much too delicate for actual warfare. But it is obvious 
 that a finer material than usual frequently tempted the 
 worker in flint or obsidian to an unwonted display of his 
 art. In various private collections in Kentucky, Ohio, and 
 Pennsylvania, I have seen choice specimens of spear and 
 arrow-heads, and other objects, made of jasper, milky-quartz, 
 and rock crystal ; some of them wrought into fantastic or 
 purely ornamental forms. 
 
 A state battle-axe in the Christy collection made of groeu 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
 ,p; 
 
194 
 
 HONDURAS FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 quartzose avanturiio, measures 11 inches in length. It is a 
 thick wedge, with the upper part carved as the head of a 
 Mexican idol or king, and the arms outlined on the blade. 
 Jade, green serpentine, grey granite, agate, and obsidian of 
 different colours, were all worked into various shapes for 
 ornament or use, with a care often prompted by the attractive 
 character of the material, and with a skill no longer known 
 to the native Mexican aitificers. 
 
 In the southern continent also examples of mastery in the 
 manufacture of flint and stone implements survive, in some 
 cases as the sole memorials of races w. 'ch have perished ; 
 and traces of the arts of savage tribes in the primitive 
 condition of a purely stone-period lie everywhere outside 
 of the remarkable centres of Peruvian civilisation. Three 
 such relics from the Bay of Honduras are deserving of 
 
 Fio. 60.— Honduras serrated Implement. 
 
 special notice, from their unusually large size and peculiar 
 forms. They were found, along with other implements, 
 about the year 1794, in a cave between two and three 
 miles inland. One of them is now preserved in the British 
 Museum, and the others have been repeatedly exhibited at 
 meetings of the Archaeological Institute. The accompany- 
 ing illustrations will best convey an idea of their peculiar 
 forms. One (Fig. GO) is a serrated weapon, pointed at 
 both ends, and measuring sixteen and a half inches long. 
 Another (Fig. Gl), in the form of a crescent, with pro- 
 jecting points, measuring 17 inches in greatest length, 
 may have served as a weapon of parade, like the state par- 
 tisan or halberd of later times. The third, which is im- 
 perfect, is shown in Fig. 62. The whole are examples 
 of flint implements of unusually largo proportions, and 
 
VII.] 
 
 SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL. 
 
 *9S 
 
 long. 
 . pro- 
 
 CDgtll, 
 
 par- 
 is im- 
 imples 
 aud 
 
 chipped with extraordinary regularity and skill. A well- 
 executed head of a warrior, in terra cotta, obtained about 
 the same period, if not indeed along with these implements, 
 was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland iri 
 1798, and is figured on a subsequent page. The unwonted 
 
 Pio. 01.— Honduras State Halberd. 
 
 size of those Honduras implements attracted special notice 
 wlien first produced ; but this ceases to excite surprise when 
 it is seen that blocks of flint or hornstonc adequate for the 
 
 Fia. 62.— Honduras Implement. 
 
 largest of them are readily procurable throughout extcnsiv'o 
 regions of North America, as in Ohio and Kentucky. To 
 the north of Ohio, where the material is rare, flint imple- 
 ments and weapons arc mostly of small size. The larger im- 
 
 \ 
 
 ip 
 
196 
 
 COLLISION Of^ RACES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 plements are of stone ; and among the Iroquois, the Hurons, 
 the Chippewas, and other tribes on the shores of the great 
 lakes, the copper of Lake Superior seems to have been 
 recognised, and sought for, as a fitter material for large 
 hatchets and spear-heads. ; » , 
 
 In this respect we see the very privations of those Indian 
 tribes forcing on their notice the resources of the copper 
 region, which might, among so energetic a people as the 
 Iroquois proved themselves to be, have at length led to such 
 a mastery of the metallurgic arts as was achieved by the 
 nations of Mexico and Peru. But their energies were 
 diverted into far different channels by the very advent of 
 races already familiar with all the highest acquirements of 
 civilisation ; and whatever time might have developed out 
 of the Iroquois confederacy, akin to the native civilisation 
 which had already taken ioot beyond the verge of their 
 southern conquests, they had little to hope from the triumph 
 of either of the European aggressors between whom they so 
 long held the balance. In the rivalry of the French and 
 English colonists the insular race proved the victors ; and 
 when at a later date England and her American colonies 
 came into collision, the nations of the League took different 
 sides, and the Hodenosaunee* finally ceased to be the ideal 
 rallying-point of a united people. They had run their des- 
 tined course ; and now the poor scattered remnants of the 
 once-famous Indian federation serve only to illustrate how 
 irreconcilable arc the elements of high civilisation with the 
 most vigorous and progressive energy of a people only 
 maturing the first stage in the progress of nations. They 
 lacked the qualities which protect an inferior race from 
 extinction when brought into contact with a long ma- 
 tured civilisation. Passive and naturally submissive race?, 
 like the Malay or the Negro, survive the intrusion of a 
 dominant race, and are protected by their docility, as the 
 
 * JI(hilS-no-aau-nee, or People of the Long Ilouse, expressive of the numerous 
 assembly in the Council of the Confederaoy. 
 
VII.] 
 
 FATE OF INFERIOR RACES. 
 
 197 
 
 natural serfs of the intruders. But an energetic people, who 
 find their chief employment in war and the chase, can be 
 subjected to no useful servitude. They are separated by 
 too wide a gulf from their rivals to claim any equality in 
 the rights of civilisation. The only alternative left for them 
 is to drive out the intruder, or to be exterminated by him 
 like the bear and wolf. Stone, bronze, and iron periods 
 are not indispensable steps in the advancement of the human 
 race ; but all experience proves that when such extreme 
 social conditions are abruptly brought into contact as stone 
 and iron periods aptly symbolise, the tendency is towards 
 the degradation and final extinction of the less advanced 
 race. 
 
 11! 
 
 ill 
 11 
 
:K1. 
 
 198 
 
 £>A IVN OF A METALLURGIC ERA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE METALS. 
 
 DAWN OP A METALLUROIC EBA— PRIMITIVE COPPER-WOBKINO — COPPER REGION OP 
 LAKE SUPERIOR— THE PICTURED ROCKS— JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN— THE CUFF 
 MINE— COPPER TOOLS— ANCIENT MININO TRENCHES —GREAT EXTENT OP WORKS 
 — MINES OP ISLE ROTALE— THEIR ^TIMATED AGE— ANCIENT MININO IMPLEMENTS 
 — STO.fE MAULS AND AXES— ONTONAGON MINING RELICS— SITES OP COPPER M.'.NU- 
 FACT0UIE8— NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER — BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS— 
 iMiii METALLURGIC ARTS— CHEMICAL ANALYSES— NATIVE TERRA-C0TTA8— 
 ANCIENT BRITISH MINING-TOOLS — THE RACE OP THE COPPER MINES— CHIPPEWA 
 SUPERSTITIONS- EARLIEST NOTICES OP THE COPPER REGION- ONTONAGON MASS 
 OP COPPER— ANCIENT NATIVE TRAFFIC— NATIVE USE OF METALS— CONDITION 
 OP THE MOUND-BUILDERS— MINERAL RESOURCES— ANTIQUITY OP COPPER WORK- 
 INGS — DESERTION OP THE MINES. 
 
 The same rational instinct which prompted man in his 
 first efforts at tool-making, guided him in a discriminating 
 choice of materials ; and to this the discovery of metals, 
 and the consequent first steps in metallurgy and the arts, 
 may be traced. The Bronze Age of Europe derives its name 
 from the predominance of relics illustrative of a period 
 which, though old compared with that of definite history, 
 belongs to a comparatively late era, characterised by many 
 traces of artistic skill, and of mastery in the difficult pro- 
 cesses of smelting ores and alloying metals. But the dawn 
 of the metallurgic era in the New World is marked by 
 phases which derive their distinctive character from two 
 widely separated regions ; and of which one supplies an 
 important link in the history of human progress, at best 
 but partially indicated in the disclosures of European 
 archaeology. 
 
 To untutored man, provided only with implements of 
 stone, the facilities presented by the great copper regions of 
 
VIII 
 
 ] 
 
 rRIMITJVE COPPER- WORKING, 
 
 199 
 
 Lake Superior for the first step in the knowledge of metal- 
 lurgy were peculiarly available. The forests that flung their 
 shadows along the shores of that great lake were the haunts of 
 the deer, the beaver, the bear, and other favourite objects of 
 the chase ; the rivers and the lake abounded with fish ; and 
 the rude hunter had to manufacture weapons and implements 
 out of such materials as nature placed within his reach. 
 The water- worn stone from the beach, patiently ground to 
 an edge, made his axe and tomahawk : by means of which, 
 with the help of fire, he could level the giants of the forest, 
 or detach from them the materials for his canoe and paddle, 
 his lance, club, or bow and arrows. The bones of the deer 
 pointed his spear, or were wrought into his fish-hooks ; and 
 the shale or flint was chipped and ground into his arrow- 
 head, after a pattern repeated with little variation, in all 
 countries, and in every primitive age. But besides such 
 materials of universal occurrence, the primeval occupant of 
 the shores of Lake Superior found there a stone possessed of 
 some very peculiar virtues. It could not only be wrought 
 to an edge without liability to fracture ; but it was malleable, 
 and could be hammered out into many new and convenient 
 shapes. This was the copper, found in connection with the 
 trappean rocks of that region, in inexhaustible quantities, 
 in a pure metallic state. In other rich mineral regions, as 
 in those of Cornwall and Devon, the principal source of 
 this metal is from ores, which require both labour and skill 
 to fit them for economic purposes. But in the veins of the 
 copper region of Lake Superior the native metal occurs in 
 enormous masses, weighing hundreds of tons ; and loose 
 blocks of various sizes have been found on the lake shore, or 
 lying detached on the surface, in sufficient quantities to 
 supply all the wants of the nomad hunter. These, accord- 
 ingly, he wrought into chisels and axes, armlets, and per- 
 sonal ornaments of various kinds, without the u^e of the 
 crucible ; and, indeed, without recognising any precise dis- 
 tinction between the copper which he mechanicaUy separated 
 
 t) 
 
 
 ' 4 
 
200 COPPER REGION OF LAKE SUPERIOR. [chap. 
 
 from the mass, and the unmalleable stone or flint out of 
 which he had been accustomed to fashion his spear and 
 arrow-heads. This is confirmed by philological evidence. 
 The root of the names for iron and copper in the Chippewa 
 is the same abstract term, walihik, used only in compound 
 words. Thus pewahhik, iron ; ozahwahhik, copper : lit. 
 the yellow stone ; metahbik, on the bare rock ; oogedahhik, 
 on the top of a rock ; kishkahbikah, it is a precipice ; etc. 
 
 The earliest references to Britain pertain exclusively to 
 the peninsula cf Cornwall and the neighbouring islands, 
 whither the fleets of the Mediterranean were attracted in 
 ages of vague antiquity, and the traders from Gaul resorted 
 in quest of its metallic wealth. The mineral regions of the 
 New World disclose some corresponding records of its long- 
 forgotten past ; and some idea of their present condition is 
 indispensable for preparing the mind to appreciate the 
 changes wrought by time on localities which are now being 
 rescued once more from the wilderness. The vast inland 
 sea, which constitutes the reservoir of the chain of lak'- , 
 whose waters sweep over the Falls of Niagara, and find their 
 way by the St. Lawrence to the ocean, has been as yet so 
 partially encroached upon by the pioneers of modern civilisa- 
 tion, that the general aspect of its shores diff'ers but little 
 from that which they presented to the eye of its first Eu- 
 ropean explorers in the seventeenth century : or indeed to its 
 Indian voyagers before the Spaniard first coasted the island 
 shores of the Bahamas, and opened for Europe the gates of 
 the West,, With its wide extent of waters, covering an area 
 of thirty two thousand square miles, a lengthened period of 
 sojourn in the regions with which it is surrounded, and 
 many facilities for their exploration, Avould be required, in 
 order to satisfy the curiosity of the scientific inquirer. But 
 even a brief visit discloses much that is interesting, and 
 that serves at once to illustrate, and to contrast with what 
 comes under the observer's notice elsewhere. 
 
 In tracing out the evidence of ancient occupation of the 
 
VIII.] 
 
 THE PICTURED ROCKS. 
 
 201 
 
 shores of Lake Superior, I have, on repeated visits, coasted 
 its shores for hundreds of miles in canoes ; and camped for 
 weeks in some of its least accessible wilds. The force of the 
 evidence is slowly appreciated, even by careful personal 
 observation; but some description of the ancient copper 
 region may help the reader to estimate the lapse of time 
 since its forest-glades and rocky promontories were enlivened 
 by the presence of industrious miners. The memorials of 
 Time's unceasing operations reach indeed to periods long 
 prior to the earliest presence of man, and present certain 
 lake phenomena, on a scale only conceivable by those who 
 have sailed on the bosom of these fresh- water seas with as 
 boundless a horizon as in mid Atlantic ; and who have 
 experienced the violence of the sudden storms to which 
 they are liable. But while the same broad ocean-like ex- 
 panse, and the violence of their stormy moods, characterise 
 Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan : it is only on Lake 
 Superior that the traveller witnesses the grandeur and wild 
 ruggedness of scenery commensurate with his preconceived 
 ideas of such inland seas. Along its northern and western 
 shores bold cliffs tnd rocky headlands frown in savage 
 grandeur, from amii the unbroken wastes of forest that 
 reach to the frozen regions around the Hudson Bay, while 
 the gentler coast-lines of its southern shores are varied by 
 some of the most singular conformations, wrought out of its 
 rocky walls by the action of the waves. Among such rock- 
 formations, no features are so remarkable as those presented 
 by a portion of the extensive range of sandstone cliffs, which 
 project in jagged and picturesque masses from the southern 
 shore, soon after passing the Grand Sable ; and to which 
 fresh interest has been given by the interweaving of the 
 Algonquin legends of the locality into Longfellow's Indian 
 Song of Hiaivatha. '■.■^-c-]-^-'.::^-'':_^^x: 
 
 The Pictured Rocks are situated between the copper 
 regions and the ancient portage, which has been recently 
 superseded by a canal opening navigation for the largest 
 
 .fir 
 
202 
 
 JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 vessels from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. They lie in 
 the centre of the long indentation, which, sweeping from 
 Keweenaw Peninsula eastward to White Fish Point, forms 
 the coast most distant from the northern shores of the lake. 
 Here the cliffs have been exposed through unnumbered ages 
 to the waves under the action of northerly winds ; while a 
 contemporaneous upheaval, prolonged probably through 
 vast periods of time, has contributed no unimportant share 
 in the operations by which their striking forms have been 
 produced. Beyond those the voyager comes once more on 
 rocky cliffs in the vicinity of Marquette : so named after the 
 Jesuit missionary by whom the upper waters of the Missis- 
 sippi were first reached two centuries ago, in 1673. Impor- 
 tant changes have been wrought in the interval. Mineral 
 treasures, undreamt of by the ancient miners, are now re- 
 warding the industry of the Indians' supplanters. The iron 
 period, with its fully developed civilisation, is invading those 
 forest tracks ; and when I first visited Marquette in 1855, 
 on the bold trappean rocks which form the landing, abraded 
 and scratched with the glacial action of a long superseded 
 era, were piled the rich products of the " Jackson Iron 
 Mountain," which rears its bold outline at a distance of 
 twelve miles from the shore. Immediately to the north of 
 this point the promontory of Presque Isle presents in some 
 respects a striking contrast to the Pictured Rocks ; though, 
 like them, also indented and hollowed out into detached 
 masses, and pierced with the wave-worn caverns of older 
 levels of shore and lake. Here the water-worn sandstone 
 and the igneous rocks overlie or intermingle with each other 
 in picturesque confusion : the symbol, as it were, of the 
 transition between the copper and iron eras. For it is just 
 at Presque Isle that the crystalline schists, with their inter- 
 mingling masses of trappean and quartz rocks, richly impreg- 
 nated with the specular and magnetic oxide of iron, pass 
 into the granite and sandstone rocks, which intervene 
 between the ferriferous formations and the copper-bearing 
 
V'TI.] 
 
 THE CLIFF MINE. 
 
 20" 
 
 Ting 
 
 traps of Keweenaw Point. Beyond this, the rich copper- 
 bearing region of the Keweenaw Peninsula stretches far 
 into the lake, traversed in a south-westerly direction by 
 magnificent cliffs of trappean rocks, presenting their per- 
 pendicular sides to the south-east, and covered even amid 
 the rocky debris with ancient forest-trees. In this igneous 
 rock are found the copper veins, which in recent years 
 have conferred such great commercial value on the district 
 of Michigan ; and there I not only witnessed extensive 
 mining operations in progress, but have investigated 
 evidences of the ancient miners' labours which prove the 
 prolonged practice there, at some remote period, of native 
 metallurgic arts. 
 
 On landing at Eagle river, one of the points for shipping 
 the copper ores, on the west side of the Keweenaw Penin- 
 sula, the track lies through dense forest, over a road in some 
 parts of rough corduroy, and in others traversing the 
 irregular exposed surface of the copper-bearing trap. After 
 a time it winds through a gorge, covered with immense 
 masses of trap and crumbling debris, amid which pine, and 
 the black oak and other hard wood, have contrived to find a 
 sufficient soil for taking root and attaining their full propor- 
 tions ; and beyond the cliffs, in a level bottom on the other 
 side of the trap ridge, is the Cliff Mine settlement, one of 
 the most important of all the mining works in operation in 
 this region. Here I descended a perpendicular shaft by means 
 of ladders, to a depth of sixty fathoms, and explored various 
 of the levels : passing in some cases literally through tun- 
 nels made in the solid copper. The very abundance of the 
 metal proves indeed, at times, an impediment to its profitable 
 working, owing to the labour necessarily expended in chisel- 
 ling out masses from the solid lump, to admit of their being 
 taken to the surface, and transported through such tracts as 
 have been described, to the Lake shore. The floor of the 
 level was strewed with copper shavings : for the extreme 
 ductility of the native copper precludes the application of 
 
 

 204 
 
 COPPER TOOLS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 li!,|;:|:,:Ml 
 
 other force than manual labour for separating it from the 
 parent mass. I saw also beautiful specimens of silver, in a 
 matrix of crystalline quartz, obtained from this mine ; and 
 the copper of the district is stated to contain on an average 
 about 3*10 per cent, of silver. This is indeed by far the 
 richest mineral locality that has yet been wrought. In a 
 single year upwards of sixteen hundred tons of copper have 
 been procured from the Cliff Mine, and one mass was esti- 
 mated to weigh eighty tons. Its mineral wealth was known 
 to the ancient miners ; but the skill and appliances of the 
 modern miner give him access to veins entirely beyond the 
 reach of the primitive metallurgist, who knew of no harder 
 material for his tools than the native rock and the ductile 
 metal he was in search of. 
 
 At the Cliff Mine are preserved some curious specimens 
 of ancient copper tools found in its vicinity, but it is to the 
 westward of the Keweenaw Peninsula that the most exten- 
 sive traces of the aboriginal miners' operations are seen. 
 The copper-bearing trap, after crossing the Keweenaw Lake, 
 is traced onward in a south-westerly direction till it crosses 
 the Ontonagon river about twelve miles from its mouth, 
 at an elevation of upwards of three hundred feet above 
 the lake. At this locality the edges of the copper veins crop 
 out in various places, exposing the metal in irregular patches 
 over a considerable extent of country, many of which have 
 been partially wrought by the ancient miners. Here, in the 
 neighbourhood of the Minnesota Mine, are extensive traces 
 of trenches and other mining operations, which prove that 
 they must have been carried on for a long period. These 
 excavations are partially filled up, and so overgrown in the 
 long interval between their first excavation and their obser- 
 vation by recent explorers, that they scarcely attract atten- 
 tion. Nevertheless some trenches have been found to 
 measure from eighteen to thirty feet in depth ; and one of 
 them disclosed a detached mass of native copper, weighing 
 upwards of six tons, resting on an artificial cradle of black 
 
VIII.] 
 
 ANCIENT MINING TRENCHES. 
 
 205 
 
 ii 
 
 oak, partially preserved by immersion in the water with 
 which it had been filled. Various implements and tools 
 of the same metal also lay in the deserted trench, where 
 this huge mass had been separated from its matrix, and 
 elevated on the oaken frame, preparatory to its removal 
 entire. It appeared to have been raised about five feet, and 
 then abandoned, abruptly as it would seem : since even the 
 copper tools were found among the accumulated soil by 
 which it had been anew covered up. The solid mass 
 measured ten feet long, three feet wide, and nearly i\' > feet 
 thick ; every projecting piece had been removed, so that the 
 exposed surface was left perfectly smooth, possibly by other 
 and ruder workers of a date subsequent to the desertion of 
 the mining trench by its original explorers. 
 
 The mining operations of upwards of a quarter of a cen- 
 tury have done much to efface the traces of the ancient 
 works, as every indication of them is eagerly followed up 
 by the modern miner, as the most promising clew to rich 
 metalliferous deposits. But towards the close of 18 74 Mr. 
 Davis, an experienced old miner of Lake Superior, recovered 
 from another ancient trench, in the same region, a solid 
 mass of nearly pure copper, heart-shaped, and weighing 
 between two and three tons. It lay at a depth of seventeen 
 feet from the surface, as when originally detached from its 
 bed by the ancient miners. Alongside of it were a number 
 of smaller pieces, from a single ounce to seventeen pounds in 
 weight, evidently broken ofi" the large mass by the original 
 workers of the mine. Numerous stone mauls and hammers 
 also, weighing from ten to thirty pounds, lay scattered 
 through the lower debris with which the trench was refilled. 
 But the absence of any copper tools seemed to point to the 
 final desertion of the mine, from some unknown cause, at 
 the very time when its resources were most available. 
 
 Attention was first directed to such traces of ancient 
 mining operations, by the agent of the Minnesota Mining 
 Company in 1847. Following up the indications of a con- 
 
 1 
 
'2o6 
 
 GREAT EXTENT OF WORKS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 tinuous depression in the soil, he came at length to a cavern 
 where he found several porcupines had fixed theii quarters for 
 hybernation ; but detecting evidences of artificial excavation, 
 he proceeded to clear out the accumulated soil, and not only 
 exposed to view a vein of copper, but found in the rubbish 
 numerous stone mauls and hammers of the ancient workmen. 
 Subsequent observation brought to light excavations of great 
 extent, frequently from twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and 
 scattered over an area of several miles. The rubbish taken 
 from these is piled up in mounds alongside; while the 
 trenches have been gradually refilled with soil and decaying 
 vegetable matter gathered through the long centuries since 
 their desertion ; and over all, the giants of the forest have 
 grown, withered, and fallen to decay. Mr. Knapp, tlic 
 agent of the Minnesota Company, counted 395 annular 
 rings on a hemlock tree, which grew on one of the mounds 
 of earth thrown out of an ancient mine. Mr. Foster also 
 notes the great size and age of a pine-stump which must 
 have grown and died since the work:> were deserted ; and 
 Mr. Whittlesey not only refers to living trees upwards of 
 three hundred years old, now flourishing in the abandoned 
 trenches; but he adds : "on the same spot there are the decayed 
 trunks of a preceding generation or generations of trees that 
 have arrived at maturitv and fallen down from old age." 
 The deserted mines arc found at numerous points extending 
 over upwards of a hundred miles along the southern shore 
 of the lake ; and reappear beyond it, in extensive excava- 
 tions on Isle Royale. Sir William Logan reports others 
 observed by him on the summit of a ridge at Maimnnse, on 
 the north shore, where the old excavations are surrounded 
 by broken pieces of vein-stone, wi*^h stone mauls rudely 
 formed from natural boulders. The extensive area over 
 which such works have thus been traced, the evidences of 
 their prolonged working, and of their still longer abandon- 
 ment, all combine to force upon the mind convictions of 
 their remote antiquity. 
 
VIII.] 
 
 MINES OF ISLE ROYALE. 
 
 207 
 
 At Ontonagon river I met with Captain Peck, a settler 
 whose long residence in the country has afforded him many 
 opportunities of noting the evidences of its ancient occu- 
 pation. Repeated discoveries had led him to infer the 
 great antiquity of the works ; and he specially referred to 
 one disclosure of ancient mining operations near the forks 
 of the Ontonagon river, where, at a depth of upwards of 
 twenty-five feet, stone mauls and other tools were found 
 in contact with a copper vein ; in the soil above these 
 lay the trunk of a large cedar, and over all grew a hem- 
 lock-tree, with its roots spread entirely above the fallen 
 cedar, in the accumulated soil with which the , trench was 
 filled, and indicating a growth of not less than three 
 centuries. But the buried cedar, which in favourable cir- 
 cumstances is far more durable than the oak, represents 
 another and longer succession of centuries, subsequent to 
 that protracted period during which the deserted trench was 
 slowly filled up with accumulations of many winters. In 
 another excavation a bed of clay had been formed aljove the 
 ancient flooring to the depth of a foot. On this lay the 
 skeleton of a deer which had stumbled in and perished there ; 
 and over it clay, leaves, sand, and gravel had accumulated 
 to a depth of nineteen feet. Not only are such indications 
 frequent throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula, and to the 
 westward and southward of Ontonagon ; but on Isle Royalo 
 the abandoned mines disclose still stronger evidence of their 
 great antiquity. The United States Geologists remark : 
 " Mr. E. G. Shaw pointed out to us similar evidences of 
 mining on Isle Royalc, which can be traced lengthways for 
 the distance of a mile. On opening one of these pits, which 
 had become filled up, he found the mine had been worked 
 through the solid rock, to the depth of nine feet, the walls 
 being perfectly smooth. At the bottom he found a vein of 
 native copper eighteen inches thick, including a sheet of 
 puro copper lying against the foot-wall." Stone hammers 
 and wedges lay in great abundance at the bottom of the 
 
aoS 
 
 THEIR ESTIMATED AGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I ",. 
 
 trenches, but no metallic implements were found : a proof 
 perhaps that the mines of Isle Royale continued to be wrought 
 after their workers had been hastily compelled to abandon 
 those on the mainland. Mr. Shaw adopted the conclusion, 
 from the appearance of the wall-rocks, the multitude of 
 stone implements, and the mat^^ial removed, that the labour 
 of excavating the rock must have been performed solely 
 with such instruments, with the aid, perhaps, of fire. But 
 the appearance of the vein, and the extent of the workings, 
 furnished evidence not only of great and protracted labour, 
 but also of the use of other tools than those of stone. Ac- 
 cumulated vegetable matter had refilled the excavations to 
 a level with the surrounding surface, and over this the forest 
 extended with the same luxuriance as on the natural soil. 
 In this barren and rocky region t1 e filhng up of the trenches 
 with vegetable soil must have been the work of many cen- 
 turies ; so that the whole aspect of the deserted mines of Isle 
 Royale confirms the antiquity ascribed to them. 
 
 What appear to the eye of the traveller as the giants of 
 the primeval forest, are the growth of comparatively modern 
 centuries, subsequent to the era when the shores of Lake 
 Superior rang with the echo(es of industrial toil. Two or 
 three centuries would seem altogether inadequate to furnish 
 the requisite time for the most partial accumulation of soil 
 and decayed vegetable matter with whirh the old miners' 
 trenches have been filled. Four contf ' thereafter are 
 indisputably recorded by recent ,3urvivur^, i' 3 forest, inde- 
 pendent of all traces of previous arborescci.1 generations ; 
 and thus in the excavations and tools of the copper regions 
 of Lake Superior, we look on memorials of a metallurgic 
 industry long prior to those closing years of the fifteenth 
 century, in which the mineral wealth of the New World 
 awoke the Spanish lust for gol<i. An uncertain, yet con- 
 siderable interval must be assumed between the abandon- 
 ment of those ancient works, and the forest's earliest growth ; 
 and thus we are thrown back, at latest, into centuries corre- 
 
vni.] 
 
 ANCIENT MINING IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 309 
 
 sponding to Europe's mediaeval era for a period to which to 
 assign those singularly interesting traces of a lost American 
 civilisation. '; 
 
 Owing to the filling up of the abandoned mining trenches 
 with water, not only the copper and stone implements of the 
 miners are found, but examjjles of wooden tools and timber 
 framing have also been preserved, in several cases in wonder 
 ful perfection ; and these furnish interesting supplementary 
 evidence of the character of their industrial arts. 
 
 or the wooden implements, the most noticeable are the 
 shovels, by means of which the soil was excavated. The 
 accompany] nf^ woodcut represents two of them worn away 
 
 urgio 
 'cnth 
 V^orld 
 con- 
 idon- 
 wth; 
 orre- 
 
 /S2-- 
 
 Fio. O.t.— Miners' SliovelH. 
 
 to the one side, as in most of the examples found, as if used 
 for scraping rather than digging the soil. Mr. Whittlesey 
 gives a drawing of one which measured three and a half feet 
 long, recovered among the loose materials thrown out from 
 an extensive rock excavation in the side of a hill about four 
 miles south-cast of Eagle Harbour. Part of a wooden bowl 
 used for baling water, and troughs of cedar-bark, were also 
 found in the saiir,: debris, above which grew a birch about 
 two feet in diameter, with its lower roots scarcely leach- 
 ing through the ancient rubbish to the depth at which 
 those relics lay. Mr. Foster describes another wooden bowl 
 found at a depth of ten feet, in clearing out some ancient 
 workings opened by the agent of the Forest Mine; and which, 
 from the splintered pieces of rock and gravel imbedded in 
 its rim, must have been employed in baling water. Similar 
 implements have been met with in other workings, but they 
 speedily perish on being exposed to the air. All of them 
 
 i 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 O 
 
mr 
 
 2ro 
 
 STONE MAULS AND AXES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 fi 
 
 appear to have been made of white cedar. The indestructible 
 nature of this wood, when kept under water, or in a moist 
 soil, is abundantly illustrated by the experience of settlers 
 who, on attempting to clear and cultivate a cedar swamp, 
 discover that the dead trunks, exhumed undecayed after 
 centuries of immersion, rest above still older cedar-forests, 
 seemingly unaffected by the influences which restore alike the 
 oak and the pine to the vegetable mould of the forest soil. 
 
 The process of working the ancient mines seems to be 
 tolerably clearly indicated by the discoveries referred to. 
 The soil having been removed by means of wooden spades, 
 doubtless with the aid of copper tools to break up the solid 
 
 FiQ. 64.— MiiiiTfl' Stone Mauls. 
 
 earth and clay :• remains of charcoal, met with in numerous 
 
 instances on the surface of the rock, show that fire was an 
 
 important agent for overcoming the cohesion between the 
 
 copper and its matrix. Before the introduction of gunpowder 
 
 ^ fire was universally employed in excavating rock ; and where 
 
 ' fuel abounds, as in the old Harz and Altenberg mining dis- 
 
 ' i j^ tricts of Europe, it is even now found to bo quite as economical 
 
 '*^:; in destroying siliceous rocks. Stone hammers or mauls were 
 
 — next employed to break up the metalliferous rock. These 
 
 have been found in immense numbers on dift'crent mining 
 
 sites. Mr. Knapp obtained in one locality upwards of ten 
 
VIII.] 
 
 ONTONAGON MINING RELICS. 
 
 211 
 
 cart-loads ; and I was shown a well at Ontonagon constructed 
 almost entirely out of stone hammers, obtained from ancient 
 workings in the immediate vicinity. Many of these are mere 
 water-worn boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly 
 chipped at the centre, so as to admit of their being secured 
 by a withe around them. But others are well finished, with a 
 single or double groove for attaching the handle by which 
 they were wielded. They weigh from ten to forty pounds ; 
 but many are broken, and some of the specimens I saw were 
 worn and fractured from frequent use. 
 
 The extent to which co-operation was carried on by the 
 miners, with the imperfect means at their command, is illus- 
 trated by the objects recovered on exploring one of their 
 trenches, on a hill to the south of the Copper Falls mines. 
 On removing the accumulations from the excavation, stone 
 axes of large size made of greenstone, and shaped to receive 
 withe-handles, and some large round greenstone masses that 
 had apparently been used for battering-rams, were found. 
 " They had round holes bored in them to the depth of several 
 inches, which seemed to have been designed for wooden 
 plugs to which withe handles might be attached, so that 
 several men could swing them with sufficient force to break 
 the rock and the projecting masses of copper. Some of them 
 were broken, and some of the projecting ends of rock exhi- 
 bited marks of having been battered in the manner here 
 suggested."* 
 
 But the industrious miners fully appreciated the practical 
 utility of the metal they were in search of ; and it is not to 
 be supposed that they employed themselves thus laboriously 
 in mining copper, and yet themselves used only stone 
 and wooden tools. Copper axes, gads, chisels, and gouges, 
 as well ns knives and spear- heads, of considerable diversity 
 of form, have been brought to light, all of them wrought 
 from the virgin copper by means of the hammer, without 
 smelting, alloy, or the use of fire. At Ontonngon, I had an 
 
 ' SquicrV Ahorig'innl Monumfnfuo/thp Slate of Hew Y^rk. Appeinlix, p. 184. 
 
212 
 
 SITES OF COPPER MANUFACTORIES. [chap. 
 
 opportunity of examining au interesting collection of mining 
 relics, found a few months before. These consisted of copper 
 tools, with solid triangular blades like bayonets, one four- 
 teen inches, and the others about twelve inches in length ; 
 a chisel, and two singularly shaped copper gouges about 
 fourteen inches long and two inches wide, the precise use 
 of which it would be difficult to determine. The whole 
 were discovered buried in a bed of clay on the banks of 
 the river Ontonagon, about a mile above its mouth, dur- 
 ing the process of levelling it for the purposes of a brick- 
 field. Above the clay was an alluvial deposit of two feet of 
 sand, and in this, and over the relics of the ancient copper 
 workers, a pine-tree had grown to full maturity. Its gigan 
 tic roots gave proof, in the estimation of those who witnessed 
 their removal, of more than two centuries* growth ; while 
 the present ordinary level of the river is such that it would 
 require a rise of forty feet to make the deposit of sand 
 beneath which they lay. ,. < 
 
 An experienced practical miner, who had been among the 
 first to reopen some of the ancient works at the Minnesota 
 mine, recognised in the copper gouges implements adapted 
 to produce the singular tool-marks which then excited his 
 curiosity. Subjoined is a representation of a peculiar type 
 
 Pio. 66.— Ontonagon Copper ImpU>nkent. 
 
 of copper tools, sketched from one of those found at Onto- 
 nagon. The socket, formed by hammering out the lower 
 part flat, and then turning it over partially at each side, 
 corresponds to some inimitivc forms of bronze implements 
 
VIII.] 
 
 NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER. 
 
 )nto- 
 lowov 
 
 side, 
 hen is 
 
 found in Britain and the north of Europe ; but the latter 
 are cast cf a metallic compound, and prove a .skill in 
 metallurgy far in advance of the old metal-workers of Onto- 
 
 nagon. 
 
 Another, and in some respects more interesting discovery, 
 was made at a point lying to the east of Keweenaw Point, 
 in the rich iron district of Marquette, in what appears to 
 have been the ancient bed of the river Carp. About ten 
 feet above the present level of its channel, various weapons 
 and implements of copper were found. Large trees grew 
 over this deposit also, ; iid the evidences of antiquity seemed 
 not less obvious than in that of Ontonagon. The relics 
 included knives, spear or lance heads, and arrow-heads, some 
 of which were ornamented with silver. One of the knives, 
 made, with its handle, out of a single piece of copper, 
 measured altogether about seven inches long, of which the 
 blade was nearly two-thirds, and of an oval shape. It ws 
 ornamented with pieces of silver attached to it, and was in- 
 laid with a stripe of the same metal from point to haft. 
 Numerous fragments and shavings of copper were also 
 found, some of which were such as, it was assumed, could 
 only have been cut by a fine sharp tool ; and the whole 
 sufficed to indicate, even more markedly than those at Onto- 
 nagon, that not only was the native copper wrought in ancient 
 times in the Lake Superior regions, but that manufactories 
 were established along its shores, and on the banks of its 
 lavigable rivers. The recognition of silver as a distinct 
 metal by the present race of Indians is proved by the specific 
 term skooneya, by which it is designated in Chippewa ; 
 whereas gold is only known as ozahivahshooneya, or yellow 
 silver. 
 
 In 1856, Dr. Thomtis Reynolds of Brockville exhibited 
 to the Canadian Institute a collection of copper and other 
 relics discovered in that neighbourhood under singular cir- 
 cumstances ; and possessing a special interest owing to the 
 distance of the site from Lake Superior. They included a 
 
214 
 
 BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS, [chap. 
 
 peculiarly-shaped chisel or gouge, six inches in length, 
 (Fig. 67), a rude spear-head, seven inches long (Fig. 68), 
 and two small daggers or knives, one of which is shown 
 in Fig. 66, all wrought by means of the hammer, out of 
 native copper which had never been subjected to fire, as 
 is proved by the silver remaining in detached crystals in 
 the copper. They were found at the head of Les Galops 
 Eapids, on the river St. Lawrence, about fifteen feet below 
 the surface, along with twenty skeletons disposed in a cir- 
 cular space with their feet towards the centre. Dr. Rey- 
 nolds remarks of them : " Some of the skeletons were of 
 gigantic proportions. The lower jaw of one is sufficiently 
 
 Fio. 60. 
 
 Fio. 67. 
 
 : • Brockvillo Cojipor Dagger and Gouge. 
 
 large to surround the corresponding bone of an adult of our 
 present generation. The condition of the bones furnished 
 indisputable proof of their great antiquity. The skulls 
 were so completely reduced to their earthy constituents that 
 they were exceedingly brittle, and fell in pieces when re- 
 moved and exposed to the atmospliere. The metallic 
 remains, however, of more enduring material, as also several 
 stone chisels and gouges, and some flint arrow-heads, all 
 remain in their original condition ; and furnish evidence of 
 
VIII.] 
 
 LOST METALLURGIC ARTS. 
 
 '^li 
 
 the same rude arts which we know to be still practised by 
 the aborigines of the far West." After discussing the possi- 
 bility of their European origin, Dr. Eeynolds adds : " There 
 is also a curious fact, which these relics appear to confirm, 
 that the Indians possessed the art of hardening and tem- 
 pering copper, so as to give it as good an edge as iron or 
 steel. This ancient Indian art is now entirely lost." 
 
 The reference thus made to the popular theory of some 
 lost art of hardening the native copper, afforded an oppor- 
 tunity of testing it in reference to the Brockville relics. 
 They were accordingly submitted to my colleague. Pro- 
 fessor Henry Croft, of Un'versity College, Toronto, with the 
 following results : The object of the experiments was to 
 ascertain whether the metal of which the implements are 
 made is identical with the native copper of the Lake Superior 
 mines ; or whether it has been subjected to some manufac- 
 turing process, or mixed with any other substance, by which 
 its hardness might have been increased. A careful exami- 
 nation established the following conclusions : — No percep- 
 tible difference could be obsi ved between the hardness of ihe 
 implements and that of metiulic copper from Lake Superior. 
 The knife or small dagger was cleansed as far as possible 
 from its green coating ; and its specific gravity ascertained 
 as 8 "6 6. A fragment, broken off the end of the broad, flat 
 implement, described as a " copper knife of full size," hav- 
 ing been freed from its coating, was found to have a specific 
 gravity of 8 '5 8. During the cleaning of this fragment, a 
 few brilliant white specks became visible on its surface, 
 which appeared, from their colour and lustre, to be silver. 
 The structure of the metal was also highly laminated, as if 
 the instrument had been brought to its present shape by 
 hammering out a solid mass of copper, which had either 
 split up, or had been originally formed of several pieces. 
 These lamince of course contained air, and the metal was 
 covered with rust, hence the specific gravity. The process 
 by which a flat piece of copper has been overlapped, and 
 
WF 
 
 !■■■ 
 
 s SI 
 
 2r6 
 
 CHEMICAL ANALYSES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 wrought with the hammer into a rude spear-head, is shown 
 in the accompanying illustration. A portion of very solid 
 copper, from Lake Superior, of about the same weight as 
 the fragment, was weighed in water, and its gravity found 
 to be 8*92. The specific gravity of absolutely pure copper 
 varies from 8'78 to 8 '9 6, according to the greater or less 
 degree of aggregation it has received during its manufacture. 
 The fragment was completely dissolved by nitric acid ; and 
 the solution, on being tested for silver by hydrochloric acid, 
 gave a scarcely perceptible opacity, indicating the presence 
 of an exceedingly minute trace of silver. The copper having 
 been separated by hydro-sulphuric acid, the residual liquid 
 was tested for other metals. A very minute trace of iron 
 was detected. The native copper from Lake Superior was 
 tested in the same manner, and was found to contain no 
 
 Fio. C8.— Brockville Copper Spnar. 
 
 trace of silver, but a minute trace of iron. From this, it 
 appears that the implements are composed of copper almost 
 pure, differing in no material respect from the native copper 
 of Lake Superior. 
 
 It is thus apparent that, in the case of the Brock'^dlle 
 relics, the theory of a lost art of hardening and tempering 
 copper w^as a mere reflex of the prevalent popular fallacy ; 
 and there is no reason for anticipating a different result in 
 other cases in which the same theory is tested. 
 
 More recently a well-finished dagger of hammered copper, 
 nine inches long, and a smaller copper gouge, have been 
 turned up by the plough : the former at Burnhamthorpe, 
 and the latter at Chinguacousy, in Ontario ; and from time 
 to time similar discoveries suffice to show the ancient diffu- 
 sion of the native copper throughout the whole region of 
 
VIII.] 
 
 NATIVE TERRA-COTTAS. 
 
 ipper, 
 been 
 
 the great lakes. In his account of the discovery of the 
 Brockville relics, Dr. Eeynolds assumes them to pertain to 
 the present Indian race. The evidences of antique sepul- 
 ture, however, are unmistakable ; and other proofs suggest a 
 different origin. Mr. Squier, by whom they had been pre- 
 viously described, remarks in the Appendix to his Abori- 
 ginal Monuments of the State of New York:^ "Some 
 implements entirely corresponding with these have been 
 found in Isle Royale, and at other places in and around 
 Lake Superior." But besides the copper implements, there 
 lay in the same deposit a minia- 
 ture mask of terra-cotta of peculiar 
 workmanship, suggestive rather 
 of relation to the arts of the 
 Mound-Builders. Mr. Squier has 
 figured it from an incorrect draw- 
 ing, which indicates a minuter 
 representation of Indian features 
 than the original justifies. It is 
 engraved here, the size of the 
 original, from a photographic 
 copy, and, as will be seen, is a 
 rude mask, such as is by no 
 means uncommon among the small terra-cottas of Mexico 
 and Central America. This mingling of traces of a certain 
 amount of artistic skill with the arts of the primitive metal- 
 lurgist, entirely corresponds with the disclosures of the 
 ancient mounds of the Mississippi ; and, indeed, agrees with 
 other partial manifestations of art in an imperfectly de- 
 veloped civilisation. 
 
 I was struck, when examining the rude stone mauls of 
 the miners of Ontonagon, by their resemblance to some 
 which I have seen, obtained from ancient copper workings 
 of North Wales. In a communication made to the British 
 Archseological Institute by the Hon. William Owen Stanley, 
 
 * SmiUuonian Contributions, vol. ii, pp. 14, 176. 
 
 Pio. 69.— Terra-cotta Mask. 
 
 
^1 
 J5 i 
 
 2r8 
 
 ANCIENT BRITISH MINING . uOLS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 in 1850, he gave an account of an ancient shaft broken 
 into at the copper mines of Llandudno, Carnarvonshire. In 
 this were found mining implements, consisting of chisels, or 
 picks of bronze, and a number of rudely-fashioned stone 
 mauls of various sizes, weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs. 
 Their appearance suggested that they had been used for 
 breaking, pounding, or detaching the ore from the rock ; and 
 the character both of the bronze and stone implements 
 seems to point to a period long prior to the Koman occu- 
 pation of Britain. These primitive mauls are stated to be 
 similar to water-worn stones found on the sea-beach at Pen 
 Mawr. Mr. Stanlej'^ also describes others, corresponding in 
 like manner to those found on the shores of Lake Superior, 
 which had been met with in ancient workings in Anglesea. 
 Were we, therefore, disposed to generalise from such analo- 
 gies, as ingenious speculators on the lost history of the New 
 Worlt^ have been prone to do, we might trace in this cor- 
 respondence a confirmation of he supposed colonisation of 
 America, in the twelfth centu y Madoc, the son of Owen 
 Gwynnedd, king of North Wales. But the resemblance 
 between the primitive Welsh and American mining tools, 
 can be regarded only as evidence of the corresponding opera- 
 tions of the human mind, when placed under similar cir- 
 cumstances, and with the same limited means, which is illus- 
 trated in so many ways by the arts of the stone-period, 
 whether of the most ancient or of modern date. Nor can 
 such correspondences be regarded as altogether accidental. 
 They confirm the idea of certain innate and instinctive 
 operations of human ingenuity, ever present and ready to 
 be called forth for the accomplishment of similar purposes 
 by the same limited means. 
 
 From this review of the evidences of long-abandoned 
 mining operations on the shores and islands of Lake Superior, 
 it cannot admit of doubt that in them we look on the traces 
 of an imperfectly developed yet highly interesting native 
 civilisation, pertaining to centuries long anterior to the dis- 
 
 Sllllli 
 
VIII.] 
 
 THE RACE OF THE COPPER MINES. 
 
 219 
 
 )ned 
 |jrior, 
 taces 
 itive 
 dis- 
 
 covery of America in the fifteenth century. The question 
 naturally arises : By whom were those ancient mines 
 wrought ? AVas it by the ancestry of the present Indian 
 tribes of North America, or by a distinct and long-super- 
 seded race ? The tendency of opinion among American 
 writers has been towards a unity and comprehensive isola- 
 tion of the races and arts of the New World. Hence the 
 theories alike of Morton and of Schoolcraft, though founded 
 on diverse premises, favour the idea that the germs of all that 
 is most noticeable even in the civilisation of Central America 
 may be found among the native arts, and the manners and 
 customs of the forest tribes. But neither the traditions nor 
 the arts of the Indians of the northern lakes supply any 
 satisfactory link connecting them with the Copper-Miners 
 or the Mound-Builders. Of Loonsfoot, an old Chippewa 
 chief of Lake Superior, the improbable statement is made 
 that he oould trace back his ancestry by name, as heredi- 
 tary chiefs of his tribe, for upwards of four hundred years. 
 At the request of Mr. Whittlesey he was questioned by an 
 educated half-breed, a nephew of his own, relative to the 
 ancient copper mines, and his answer was in substance 
 as follows: — "A long time ago the Indians were much 
 better off" than they are now. They had copper axes, arrow- 
 heads, and spears, and also stone axes. Until the Frtiich 
 came here, and blasted the rocks with powder, we have no 
 traditions of the copper mines being worked. Our fore- 
 fathers used to build big canoes and cross the lake over to 
 Isle Royale, where they found more copper than anywhere 
 else. The stone hammers that are now found in the old 
 diggings we know nothing about. The Indians were for- 
 merly much more numerous and happier. They had no 
 such wars and troubles as they have now." At La Pointe 
 on Lake Superior, it was my good fortune to meet with 
 Beshekee, or Buffalo, a rugged specimen of an old Chippewa 
 chief. He retained all the wild Indian ideas, though accus- 
 tomed to frequent intercourse with white men ; boasted of 
 
m.'^ 
 
 220 
 
 CHIPPE WA SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 k..£: i 
 
 the scalps he had taken ; and hehl to his pagan creed as the 
 only religion for the Indian, whatever the Great Spirit 
 might have taught the white man. His grandson, an edu- 
 cated half-breed, acted as interpreter, and his reply to 
 simixar inquiries was embodied in the following sententious 
 declaration of Indian philosophy : — " The white man thinks 
 he is the superior of the Indian, but it is not so. The Red 
 Indian was made by the Great Spirit, who made the forests 
 and the game, and he needs no lessons from the white man 
 how to live. If the same Great Spirit made the white man, 
 he has made him of a different nature. Let him act accord- 
 ing to his nature ; it is the best for him ; but for us it is 
 not good. We had the red-iron before white men brought 
 the black-iron amongst us ; but if ever such works as you 
 describe were carried on along these Lake shores before 
 white men came here, then the Great Spirit must once 
 l^efore have made men with a different nature from his red 
 children, such as you white men have. As for us, we live 
 as our forefathers have always done." 
 
 La Pointe, or Chaquamegon, where this interview took 
 place, was visited by the Jesuit Father, Claude Alloiiez, in 
 1666, and is described by him as a beautiful bay, the shonvs 
 of which were occupied by the Chippewas in such numbers 
 that their warriors alone amounted to eight hundred. In 
 the journal of his travels, he thus refers to the mineral re- 
 sources for which the region is now most ftimed : — " The 
 savages reverence the lake as a divinity, and offer sacrifices 
 to it because of its great size, for it is two hundred leagues 
 long and eighty broad ; and also, because of the abundance 
 of fish it supplies to them, in lieu of game, which is scarce 
 in its environs. They often find in the lake pieces of copper 
 weighing from ten to twenty pounds. I have seen many 
 such pieces in the hands of tlie savages ; and as they are 
 superstitious, they regard them as divinities, or as gifts 
 which the gods who dwell beneath its waters have bestowed 
 on them to promote their welfare. Hence they preserve 
 
VIII.] EARLIEST NO TICES OF THE COPPER REGION. 2 2 1 
 
 11 
 
 sucli pieces of copper wrapped up along witii their most 
 prized possessions. By some they have been preserved 
 upwards of fifty years, and others have had them in their 
 families from time immemorial, cherishing them as their 
 household gods. There was visible for some time, near the 
 shore, a large rock entirely of copper, with its top rising 
 above the water, which afforded an opportunity for those 
 passing to cut pieces from it. But when I passed in that 
 vicinity nothing could be seen of it. I believe that the storms, 
 which are here very frequent, and as violent as on the ocean, 
 had covered the rock with sand. Our Indians wished to 
 persuade me it was a divinity which had disappeared, but 
 for what reason they would not say."^ 
 
 Such is the earliest notice we have of Indian ideas 
 relative to the native copper. It accords with all later 
 information on the same subject, and is opposed to any tra- 
 dition of their ancestors having been the workers of the 
 abantioned copper mines. A secrecy, resulting from tlie 
 superstitions associated with the mineral wealth of the great 
 Lake, appears to have thrown impediments in the way of 
 inquirers. Father Dablon narrates a marvellous account 
 connnunicated to him, of four Indians who, in old times, 
 befoie the coming of the French, had lost their way in a 
 fog, and at length effected a landing on Missipicooatong. 
 This was believed to be a floating island, mysteriously vari- 
 able in its local position and aspects. The wanderers cooked 
 their meal in Indian fashion, by heating stones and casting 
 them into a birch-bark pail filled with water. The stones 
 proved, to be lumps of copper, which they cariied off with 
 tliem ; but they had hardly left the shore when a loud and 
 angry voice, ascribed by one of them to Missibizi, the goblin 
 spirit of the waters, was heard exclaiming, "' Wliat thieves 
 are these that carry off my children's cradles and |>lay. 
 tliings?" One of the Indians died immediately from fear, 
 and two otliers soon after, while the fourth only survived 
 
 ' Rilations tltm JhuUrn, vol, iii, UiftO H iflOT. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
td 
 
 aaa 
 
 ONTONAGON MASS OF COPPER. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 long enough to reach home and relate what had happened, 
 before he also died : having no doubt been poisoned by the 
 copper used in cooking. Ever after this the Indians steered 
 their course far ojQf the site of the haunted island. In the 
 same relation, Father Dablon tells that near the river On- 
 tonagon, or Nantonagon as he calls it, is a bluff from which 
 masses of copper frequently fall out. One of these pre- 
 sented to him weighed one hundred pounds ; and pieces 
 weighing twenty or thirty pound?; are stated by him to be 
 frequently met with by the squaws when digging holes for 
 their corn. The locality thus celebrated by the earliest 
 French missionaries for its traces of mineral wealth, is in like 
 manner referred to by the first English explorer, Alexander 
 Henry : a bold adventurer, who visited the island of Mack- 
 inac, at the entrance of Lake Michigan, shortly before the 
 Treaty of Paris in 1763, and was one among the few who 
 escaped a treacherous massacre perpetrated by the Indians 
 on the Whites at Old Fort Mackinac. In his Travels and 
 Adventures in Canada and the Indian TerHtories, he 
 mentions his visiting the river Ontonagon, in 1765, and 
 adds, " I found this river chiefly remarkable for the abund- 
 ance of virgin copper which is on its banks and in its neigh- 
 bourhood. The copper presented itself to the eye in masses 
 of various weight. The Indians showed me one of twenty 
 pounds. They were used to manufacture this metal into 
 spoons and bracelets for themselves. In the perfect state 
 in which they found it, it required nothing but to be beat 
 into shape.'" ^ In the following year, Henry again visited 
 the same region. " On my way," he says, " I encamped a 
 second time at the mouth of the Ontonagon, and now took 
 the opportunity of going ten miles up the river with Indian 
 guides. The object which I went most expressly to see, 
 and to which I had the satisfaction of being led, was a maps 
 of copper, of the weight, according to my estimate, of no 
 less than five tons. Such was its pure and malleable state 
 
 1 Hoiiry's Traveln and AdrentiircH, Now York, 1809, p. 194. 
 
VIM.] 
 
 ANCIENT NATIVE TRAFFIC. 
 
 223 
 
 that with an axe I was able to cut off a portion weighing 
 a hundred pounds." This mass of native copper which thus 
 attracted the adventurous European explorer upwards of a 
 century ago, has since acquired considerable celebrity, as one 
 of the most prominent encouragements to the mining opera- 
 tions projected in the Ontonagon and surrounding districts. 
 It is now preserved at Washington, and is believed to be 
 the same to which Charlevoix refers as a sacrificial block 
 held in peculiar veneration by the Indians ; and on which, 
 according to their narration, a young girl had been sacrificed. 
 The Jesuit father did not obtain access to it, as it was the 
 belief of the Indians that if it were seen by a white man, 
 their lands would pass away from them. Those various 
 notices are interesting as showing to what extent the pre- 
 sent race of Indians were accustomed to avail themselves of 
 the mineral wealth of the copper regions. Illustrations of a 
 like kind might be multiplied, but they are all nearly to the 
 same effect, exhibiting the Indian gathering chance masses, 
 or hewing off pieces from the exposed copper lodes, in full 
 accordance with the simple arts of his first stone period ; 
 but affording no ground for crediting him with any tradi- 
 tionary memorials of connection with the race that once 
 excavat( 1 the trenches, and laid bare the mineral treasures 
 of the great copper region. 
 
 The evidence indicative of the great length of time which 
 has intervened since the minors of Lake Superior abandoned 
 its shores, receives confirmation from traces of a long pro- 
 tracted traffic carried on by the subsequent occupants of 
 their deserted territory. The mineral wealth that still lay 
 within reach of the non- industrial hunter of the forests wliich 
 grew up and clothed the deserted works, in the interval 
 l)etwecn their abandonment and re-occupation, furnished 
 him with a prized material for barter. The head-wators of 
 the Mississippi are within easy reach of an Indian party, 
 carrying light birch-bark canoes over the intervening por- 
 tages ; and, once launched on its broad waters, the whole 
 
 ' \ 
 
224 
 
 ITATIVE USE OF METALS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 range of the continent through twenty degrees of latitude 
 is free before them. Through Lake Huron and the Ottawa 
 into the St. Lawrence, and by Lakes Huron, Erie, and On- 
 tario, into the Hudson, other extensive areas cif native ex- 
 change were commanded. Articles wrought in the brown 
 pipe-stone of the Upper Mississippi, the red pipe-stone of 
 the Couteau des Prairies, west of St. Peters, and the copper 
 of Lake Superior, constituted the wealth which the old north 
 had to offer. In return, one of the most valued exchanges 
 appears to have been the large tropical shells of the Gulf of 
 Florida and the West Indian seas : from which wampum - 
 beads, pendants, gorgets, and personal ornaments of various 
 kinds were manufactured. 
 
 Copper is obtained in its native state still farther north ; 
 and Mackenzie, in his Second Journey, mentions its being 
 in common use among the tribes on the borders of the Arctic 
 Sea ; by whom it is wrought into spear and arrow heads, 
 and a considerable variety of personal ornaments. Mr, 
 Henry found the Christinaux of Lake Winipagon wearing 
 bracelets and other ornaments of copper ; and most of the 
 earlier explorers describe copper implements and personal 
 ornaments among widely-scattered Indian tribes of the New 
 World. But in all cases they appear to have been rudely 
 wrought with the hammer, and sparingly mingled with the 
 more abundant weapons and implements of stone, of a 
 people whose sole metallurgic knowledge consisted in gather- 
 ing or procuring by barter the native copper, — ^just as they 
 procured the red or brown pipe-stone, — and hammering the 
 mass into some simple useful form. Silver, procured in like 
 manner, was not unknown to them ; and pipes inlaid both 
 with silver and lead arc by no means rare. But it is only 
 when wc turn to the scenes of a native-born civilisation, in 
 Mexico, Central America, and Peru, where metallurgic arts 
 were developed, that wc discover evidence of the use of 
 the crucible and furna.co, and find copper superseded by 
 the more useful alloy, bronze. 
 
VIII.] CONDITION OF THE MOUND BUILDERS. 225 
 
 But intermediately between the copper regions of Lake 
 Superior and the ancient southern scenes of native American 
 civilisation, the Mississippi and its great tributaries drain 
 a country remarkable for monuments of a long forgotten 
 past, not less interesting and mysterious than the forsaken 
 mines of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, or Isle Royale. Those 
 great earthworks are ascribed to an extinct race, conve- 
 niently known by the name of the Mound-Builders. Care- 
 ful investigations into their structure and contents prove 
 these builders to have been a people among whom copper 
 was in frequent use, but by them also it was worked only 
 by the hammer. The invaluable service of fire in reducing 
 and smelting ores, moulding metals, and adapting them to 
 greater usefulness by well-proportioned alloys, was unknown ; 
 and the investigation and analysis of their cold-wrought 
 tools seem to prove that the source of their copper was the 
 Lake Superior mines. But though the ancient Mound- 
 Builder was thus possessed of little higher metallurgic 
 knowledge than the Indian hunter : he manifested in other 
 respects a capacity for extensive and combined operations, 
 the memorials of which perpetuate bis monumental skill and 
 persevering industry in tha gigantic earthworks from whence 
 his name is derived. From these we learn that there was a 
 period in America's unrecorded history, when the valleys of 
 the Mississippi and its tributaries were occupied by a numer- 
 ous settled population. Alike in physical conformation — so 
 far as very imperfect evidence goes, — and in some of their 
 arts, these Mound-Builders approximated to races of Central 
 and South America, and differed from the Red Indian occu- 
 pants of their deserted seats. They were not, to all appear- 
 ance, far advanced in civilisation. Compared with the 
 people of Mexico or Central America when first seen by the 
 Spaniards, their social and intellectual development was 
 probably rudimentary. But they had advanced beyond 
 that stage in which it is possible for a people to continue 
 unprogressive. The initial steps of civilisation had been 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
226 
 
 MINERAL RESOURCES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 inaugurated ; and the difference between them and the civi- 
 lised Mexicans is less striking than the contrast which the 
 evidences of their settled condition, and the proofs of exten- 
 sive co-operation in their numerous earthworks supply, 
 when compared with all that pertains to the tribes by whom 
 the American forests and prairies have been exclusively 
 occupied during the centuries since Columbus. 
 
 The Mound-Builders were greatly more in advance of the 
 Indian hunter than behind the civilised Mexican. They 
 had acquired habits of combined industry ; were the settled 
 occupants of specific territories ; and are proved, by numer- 
 ous ornaments and implements of copper deposited in their 
 monuments and sepulchres, to have been familiar with the 
 mineral resources of the northern lake regions, whether by 
 personal enterprise, or by a system of exchange. What 
 probabilities there are suggestive of a connection between 
 the Mound-Builders and the ancient Miners will be dis- 
 cussed in a later chapter, along with other and allied ques- 
 tions ; but to just such a race, with their imperfect mecha- 
 nical skill, their partially developed arts, and their aptitude 
 for continuous combined operations, may be ascribed, d, 
 priori, such mining works as are still traceable on the shores 
 of Lake Superior, overshadowed with the forest growth of 
 centuries. The mounds constructed by the ancient race arc 
 in like manner overgrown with the evidences of their long 
 desertion ; and the condition in which recent travellers have 
 found the ruined cities of Central America, may serve to 
 show what even New York, Washington, and Philadelphia : 
 what Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, would become after a 
 very few centuries, if abandoned, like the desolate cities of 
 Chichenitza or Uxmal, to the inextinguishable luxuriance of 
 the American forest growth. 
 
 The accumulations of vegetable mould, the buried forests 
 of older generations, and the living trees with their roots 
 entwined among the forsaken implements of the miners, all 
 point to the lapse of many centuries since their works were 
 
[chap. 
 
 e civi- 
 h the 
 exten- 
 
 whom 
 isively 
 
 of the 
 They 
 settled 
 numer- 
 in their 
 nth. the 
 ther by 
 What 
 jetween 
 be dis- 
 3d ques- 
 mecha- 
 iptitudc 
 ibed, d 
 ,e shores 
 owth of 
 Irace are 
 eir long 
 lers have 
 lerve to 
 lelphia : 
 after a 
 cities of 
 ■iance of 
 
 forests 
 kir roots 
 
 lers, all 
 I'ks were 
 
 VIII.] 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF COPPER WORKINGS. 
 
 227 
 
 abandoned. Changes wrought on the river-courses and 
 terraces in the Ohio vaUeys suggest an interval of even 
 longer duration since the construction of the great earth- 
 works with which that region abounds. But to whatever 
 period the working of the ancient copper mines of Lake 
 Superior be assigned, the aspect presented by some of them 
 when reopened in recent years is suggestive of peculiar cir- 
 cumstances attending their desertion. It is inconceivable 
 that the huge mass of copper discovered in the Minnesota 
 mine, resting on its oaken cradle, beneath the accumulations 
 of centuries, was abandoned merely because the workmen, 
 who had overcome the greatest difficulties in its removal, 
 were baffled in the subsequent stages of their operations, 
 and contented themselves by chipping off any accessible 
 projecting point. Well-hammered copper chisels, such as 
 lay alongside of it, and have been repeatedly found in the 
 works, were sufficient, with the help of stone hammers, to 
 enable them to cut it into portable pieces. If, indeed, the 
 ancient miners were incapable of doing more with their mass 
 of copper, in the mine, than breaking off a few projections, 
 to what further use could they have turned it when trans- 
 ported to the surface ? It weighed upwards of six tons, and 
 measured ten feet long and three feet wide. The trench at 
 its greatest depth was twenty-six feet ; while the mass was 
 only eighteen feet from the surface ; and in the estimation 
 of the skilled engineer by whom it was first seen, it had been 
 elevated upwards of five feet since it was placed on its 
 oaken frame. The excavations to a depth of twenty-six feet, 
 the dislodged copper block, and the framework prepared for 
 elevating the solid mass to the surface, all consistently point 
 to the same workmen. But the mere detachment of a few 
 accessible projecting fragments is too lame and impotent a 
 conclusion of proceedings carried thus far on co different a 
 scale. It indicates rather such results as would follow at 
 the present day were the Indians of the North-west to dis- 
 place the modern Minnesota miners, and possess themselves 
 
228 
 
 DESERTION OF THE MINES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 of mineral treasures which they are as little capable as ever 
 of turning to any but the most simple uses. 
 
 Such evidences, accordingly, while they serve to prove 
 the existence, at some remote period, of a mining popula- 
 tion in the copper regions of Lake Superior, seem also to 
 indicate that their labours came to an abrupt termination. 
 Whether by some devastating pestilence, like that which 
 nearly exterminated the native population of New England 
 immediately before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; by 
 the breaking out of war ; or, as seems not less probable, by 
 the invasion of the mineral region by a barbarian race, 
 ignorant of all the arts of the ancient Mound-Builders of 
 the Mississippi, and of the miners of Lake Superior : certain 
 it is that the works have been abandoned, leaving the 
 quarried metal, the laboriously wrought hammers, and the 
 ingenious copper tools, just as they may have been left when 
 the shadows of the evening told their long forgotten owners 
 that the labours of the day were at an end, but for which 
 they never returned. Nor during the centuries which have 
 elapsed since the forest reclaimed the deserted trenches for 
 its own, does any trace seem to indicate that a native popu- 
 lation again sought to avail itself of their mineral treasures, 
 beyond the manufacture of such scattered fragments as lay 
 upon the surface. 
 
IX.] 
 
 THE AGE OF BRONZE, 
 
 229 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ALLOYS. 
 
 THE AGE OF BRONZE— AN INTERMEDIATE COPPER AGE— EUROPEAN COPPER IMPLE- 
 MEXT8— NATIVE SILVER AND COPPER— TIN AND COPPER ORES— THE CASSITERIDES 
 —ANCIENT SOURCES OF TIN— ARTS OP YUCATAN— ALLOYED COPPER AXE-BLADES 
 —BRONZE SILVER-MINING TOOL— PERUVIAN BRONZES— PRIMITIVE MINING 
 TOOLS— NATIVE HETALLURGIO PROCESSES— METALLIC TREASURES OF THE INCAS 
 —TRACES OF AN OLDER RACE— PERUVIAN HISTORY— THE TOLTECS AND MEXI- 
 CANS—ADJUSTMENT OF CALENDAR— BARBARIAN EXCESSES— NATIVE GOLDSMii'U 3 
 WORK— PANAMA GOLD RELICS- MEXICAN METALLIC CURRENCY— EXPERIMENTAL 
 PROCESSES— ANCIENT EUROPEAN BRONZES— TESTS OP CIVIUSATION— ANCIENT 
 AMERICAN BRONZES— THE NATIVE METALLURGIST. 
 
 The age of bronze in the archaeological history of Euro- 
 pean civilisation symbolises a transitional stage of very 
 partial development, and imperfect materials and arts, 
 through which the Old World passed in its progress towards 
 the maturity of true historic times ; but the bronze period 
 of the New World is the highest stage of its self-developed 
 civilisation, prior to the intrusion of European arts. Whether 
 we regard the bionze implements of Britain and the North 
 of Europe as concomitant with the intrusion of new races, 
 or only as proofs of the discovery or introduction of a new 
 art pregnant with many civilising and elevating tendencies, 
 they constitute an important element in primitive ethno- 
 logy. For a time they necessarily coincide with many 
 monuments and works of art pertaining in character to the 
 stone-period ; just as the stone implements and weapons 
 still manufactured by the Indians and Esquimaux are con- 
 temporaneous with many products of foreign metallurgy, 
 but nevertheless are the perpetuation of processes developed 
 in a period when metallurgic arts were entirely unknown. 
 The evidence that the British^ bronze-period followed a 
 
230 
 
 AN INTERMEDIATE COPPER AGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Fa- 
 in • •■ 
 
 simpler and ruder one of stone is such as scarcely to admit 
 of challenge, independent of the d> priori likelihood in 
 favour of this order of succession. The question however 
 suggests itself whether metallurgy did not find it natural 
 beginning there, as elsewhere, in the easy working of the 
 virgin copper, and so intercalate a copper age between 
 Europe's stone, and its true bronze period. On this subject 
 Dr. Latham remarks, in his Ethnology of the British Islandsy 
 " Copper is a metal of which, in its unalloyed state, no relics 
 have been found in England. Stone and bone first ; then 
 bronze, or copper and tin combined ; but no copper alone. 
 I cannot get over this hiatus; cannot imagine a metal- 
 lurgic industry beginning with the use of alloys." It is a 
 mistake, however, to say that no unalloyed British copper 
 relics have been found. No very special attention was 
 directed till recently to the distinction. Nearly all the 
 earlier wnriters who refer to the metallic weapons and tools 
 of ancient Mexico and Central America, apply the term 
 " copper " to the mixed metal of which these were made ; 
 while among European antiquaries the corresponding relics 
 of the Old World are no less invariably designated bronze, 
 though in many cases thus taking for granted what analysis 
 can alone determine. It is an error, however, that the 
 later nomenclature of archaeological periods has tended to 
 strengthen : partly from the lack of appreciation of the im- 
 portance of the argument in favour of the first use of the 
 metals in a condition corresponding to the most primitive 
 arts, and the discovery of scientific processes at later stages. 
 This peculiar interest attaches to the metallurgy of the 
 New World, that there all the earlier stages are clearly de- 
 fined : the pure native metal, wrought by the hammer with- 
 out the aid of fire ; the melted and moulded copper ; the 
 alloyed bronze ; and then the smelting, soldering, graving, 
 and other processes resulting from accumulating experience 
 and matured skill. But examples of British implements of 
 pure copper have also been noted. In a valuable paper by 
 
IX.] 
 
 EUROPEAN COPPER IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 mug, 
 Iricnce 
 Ints of 
 
 )er by 
 
 Mr. J. A. Phillips, on the metals and alloys known to the 
 ancients,^ the results of analyses of thirty-seven ancient 
 bronzes are given. Among these are included three swords, 
 one from the Thames, the others from Ireland ; a spear- 
 head, two celts, and two axe-heads : all of types well known 
 among the weapons of the " bronze period." Yet of the 
 eight articles thus selected as examples of "bronze" weapons, 
 one, the spear-head, proved on analysis to be of impure but 
 unalloyed copper. Its composition is given as copper, 
 99'7l ; sulphur, 28. In 1822, Sir David Brewster described 
 a large battle-axe of pure copper, found at a depth of twenty 
 feet in Katho Bog, near Edinburgh, under circumstances 
 scarcely less remarkable than some of the discoveries of 
 works of art in the drift. The workmen dug down through 
 nine feet of moss and seven feet of sand, before they came 
 to the hard black till-clay ; and at a depth of four feet in 
 the clay the axe was found. The author accordingly re- 
 marks : " It must have been deposited along with the blue 
 clay prior to the formation of the superincumbent stratum 
 of sand, and must have existed before the diluvial opera- 
 tions by which that stratum was formed. This opinion of 
 its antiquity is strongly confirmed by the peculiarity of its 
 shape, and the nature of its composition. "^ In 1850, my 
 brother. Dr. George Wilson, undertook a series of analyses 
 of ancient British bronzes for me, and out of seven specimens 
 selected for experiment, one Scottish axe-head, rudely cast, 
 apparently in sand, was of nearly pure copper.^ Of eight 
 specimens of metal implements selected for me by Mr. 
 Thomas Ewbank, of New York, as examples of Peruvian 
 bronze ; four of them, on analysis, proved to be of unalloyed 
 copper. The rich collections of the Royal Irish Academy 
 furnish interesting confirmation of this idea of a transitional 
 copper era. Dr. Wilde remarks, in his Catalogue of An- 
 
 ;/ 1 Mems. Chemical Society, vol. iv. p, 288. 
 
 2 Edinlmrqh Philoaophical Journal, vol. vi. p. .357. 
 
 3 Prehistoric Annala of Scotland (2d ed.), vol. i. p. 319. 
 
«p 
 
 232 
 
 NATIVE SILVER AND COPPER. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 W 
 
 tiquitics, " Upon careful examination, it has been found that 
 thirty of the rudest, and apparently the very oldest celts, 
 are of red, almost unalloyed copper." In addition to those 
 there are also two battle-axes, a sword-blade, a trumpet, 
 several fibulae, and some rudely formed tools, all of copper ; 
 and now that attention has been directed to the subject, 
 further examples of the same class will doubtless accumulate. 
 A very important difference, however, distinguishes the 
 mineral resources of the British and the North American cop- 
 per regions. Copper, as we have seen, occurs in the trap- 
 pean rocks of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, in masses of many 
 tons weight ; and detached blocks of various sizes lie scat- 
 tered about in the superficial soil or exposed along the lake 
 shore, ready for use without any preparatory skill, or the 
 slightest knowledge of metallurgy. Nature in her own vast 
 crucibles had carried the metal ores through all their prepa- 
 ratory stages, and left them there for man to shape into 
 such forms as his convenience or simplest wants suggested. 
 The native silver had undergone the like preparation, and 
 is of frequent occurrence as a perfectly pure metal, being 
 found, even when interspersed in the mass of copper, still in 
 distinct crystals, entirely free from alloy with it. But 
 neither tin nor zinc occurs throughout tlie whole northern 
 region > suggest to the native metallurgist the production 
 of that valuable alloy which is indissolubly associated with 
 the civilisation of Europe's bronze age. In Britain it is 
 altogether different. The tin and copper lie together, ready 
 for alloy, but both occur in the state of impure ores, invit- 
 ing and necessitating the development of metallurgy before 
 they can be turned to economic uses. Tin is obtained in 
 Cornwall almost entirely from its peroxide ; and copper 
 occurs there chiefly combined with sulphur and iron, form- 
 ing the double sulphuret which is commonly called copper 
 pyrites or yellow copper ore. The smelting process to which 
 it has to be subjected is a laborious and complicated one ; 
 and if we are prepared to believe in the civilisation of 
 
IX.] 
 
 TIN AND COPPER ORES. 
 
 m 
 
 )per 
 
 me 
 
 Britain's bronze period as a thing of native growth, the 
 early discovery and use of alloys very slightly affects the 
 question. 
 
 The ancient American miner of Lake Superior never 
 learned to subject his wealth of copper to the action of fire, 
 and transfer it from the crucible to the shapely mould. No 
 such process was needed where it abounded in inexhaustible 
 quantities in a pure metallic state. If, in the midst of such 
 readily available metallic resources, he was found to have 
 used tools of bronze or brass, to have transported the tin or 
 zinc of other regions to his furnaces, and to have laboriously 
 converted the whole into a preferable substitute for the 
 simpler metal that lay ready for his use, it would be difficult 
 indeed to conceive of such as the initial stage in his metal- 
 lurgic industry. But Britain presents no analogy to this in 
 its development of metallurgic arts. Tin, one of the least 
 widely diffused of metals, is found there in the greatest 
 abundance, and easily accessible, not as a pure metal, but as 
 an ore which is readily reduced by charcoal and a moderate 
 degree of heat to that condition. This was the metallic 
 wealth for which Britain was sought by the ancient traders 
 of Massilia, and the fleets of the Mediterranean ; and on it we 
 may therefore assume her primitive metallurgists to have 
 first tried their simple arts. But alongside of it, and even 
 in natural combination with it, as in tin pyrites and the 
 double sulphuret, lies the copper, also in the condition of an 
 ore, and requiring the application of the metallurgist's skill 
 before it can be turned to account. We know that at the 
 very dawn of history tin was exported from Britain. Cop- 
 per also appears to have been wrought, from very early times, 
 in North Wales as well as in Cornwall. Both metals were 
 found rarely, and in small quantities, in the native state, but 
 these may have sufficed to suggest the next step of supply- 
 ing them in larger quantities from the ores. To seek in 
 some unknown foreign source for the origin of metallurgic 
 arts, which had there all the requisite elements for evoking 
 

 234 
 
 THE CASSITERIDES. 
 
 fCHAP, 
 
 them, seems wholly gratuitous ; and, if once the native 
 metallurgist learned to smelt the tin and copper ores, and 
 so had been necessitated to subject them to preparatory 
 processes of fire, the next stage in progressive metallurgy, 
 the use of alloys, was a simple one. It might further be 
 assumed that, with the discovery of the valuable results 
 arising from the admixture of tin with copper, the few pure 
 copper implements — excepting where already deposited 
 among sepulchral offerings, — would for the most part be 
 returned to the melting-pot, and reproduced in the more 
 perfect and useful condition of the bronze alloy. There 
 seems, however, greater probability in the supposition that 
 if Britain had a coj)per period, or age of unalloyed metals, it 
 was of brief duration. 
 
 The cassiteroii, or tin which made the British Islands 
 famous among Phoenician and Greek mariners, long before 
 the Roman legions ventured to cross the narrow seas, was 
 derive**!, as has been noted, from the same south-western 
 peninsula, whei-e copper is still wrought. The name of Caa- 
 siterides, or Tin Islands, bestowed on Cornwall and the 
 adjacent isles, seems to imply that tin was the chief (>xport, 
 and was transported to the Mediterranean, to be mixed with 
 the copper of the Wady Maghara, and other Asiatic mines, 
 to form the Egyptian, Phoenician, and Assyrian bronze. 
 Tin, therefore, the easiest of all metals to subject to the re- 
 quisite processes, first engaged the skill of the British metal- 
 lurgist ; and that mastered, the proximity of the copper ore 
 in the same mineral districts, inevitably suggests all the 
 subsequent processes of smelting, fusion, and alloy. 
 
 The practical value cf the alloy of copper and tin was 
 well known both to the Phoenicians and the Egyptians. 
 Tin occurs in considerable abundance, and in the purest 
 state, in the peninsula of Malacca, and thence, probably, it 
 was first brought to give a new impetus to early eastern 
 civilisation. Britain is its next and its most abundant 
 source ; and since America was embraced within the world's 
 
IX.] 
 
 ANCIENT SOURCES OF TIN, 
 
 235 
 
 sisterhood of nations, Chili and Mexico have become known 
 as productive sources of the same useful metal. But the 
 mineral wealth of Mexico and Peru was familiar to nations 
 of the New World long before it was made to contribute to 
 European commerce ;, and to a proximity of the metals best 
 suited for tlie first stages of human progress, corresponding in 
 some degree to that to which Britain's ancient metallurgy has 
 bet;n traced, the curious phases of a n<i,tive and purely abori- 
 ginal civilisation maybe ascribed, whicb 'aled itself to 
 the wondering gaze of the first Europea ' ai' • nturers who 
 followed in the steps of Columbus. Whai.c"f .' doubts may 
 arise relative to the native origin of British metfillurgy, and 
 the works of art of the European bronze r>eriod, in conse- 
 quence of their most characteristic illustrations being pre- 
 served in the mixed metal, bronze, and not in pure copper : 
 there is no room for any such doubts relative to the primi- 
 tive metallurgy of the New World. The American con- 
 tinent appears to have had its two entkely independent 
 centres of self-originated metallurgic arts : its greatly 
 prolonged but slight progressive Copper Period. ; and apart 
 from this, jind in part at least contemporaneous with it, a 
 separate Bronz(i Period, with its distinct centres of more 
 advanced civilisation and better regu ated metallurgic in- 
 dustry, in which the value of metfdlic .alloys was practically 
 understood. 
 
 The great copper region of North America lies along the 
 shores of Lake Superior, and on its larger islands between 
 the 4Gth and 48tli parallels of north latitude ; and from 
 thence its metallic treasures were diffused by piiniitivo r<^n- 
 raercial exchanges, throughout the whole vast rcgi is 
 watered by the Mississippi an<l its triljuiiiries : including 
 also the Atlantic states, and the shores of the great lakes. 
 But southward and westward of this area of difiusion, tlio 
 liio Grande and its tributaries, with the Rio Colorado, drain 
 a country modified by verj'- diverse conditions of climate, 
 and having a totally distinct centre of metallurgic weidth 
 
236 
 
 ARTS OF YUCATAN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 and civilising influences. In this central region of the twin 
 continents of America, as well as independently in tropical 
 Peru, native civilisation had advanced a considerable way, 
 before it was arrested and destroyed by the aggressions of 
 foreign intruders. The peculiar advantages derivable from 
 the proximity of the distinct metals had been discovered, 
 and metallurgy had been developed into the practical arts 
 of a true American Bronze Age. 
 
 When Columbus, during his fourth voyage, landed on one 
 of the Guanaja islands, before making the adjoining mainland 
 of Honduras, it was visited by a large trading canoe, the 
 size and freight of Vi^hich equally attracted his notice. It 
 was eight feet wide, and in magnitude like a galley, though 
 formed of the trunk of a single tree. In the centre a raised 
 awning covered and enclosed a cabin, in which sat a cacique 
 with his wives and children ; and twenty-five rowers pro- 
 pelled it swiftly through the water. The barque is believed 
 to have come from the province of Yucatan, then about forty 
 leagues distant, through a sea the stormy violence of which 
 had daunted the most hardy Spanish seamen. It was 
 freighted with a great variety of articles of manufacture, 
 and of the natural produce of the neighbouring continent ; 
 and among them Herrara specifies " small hatchets, made of 
 copper, small bells and plates, crucibles to melt copper, etc." 
 Here, at length, was the true answer to that prophetic faith 
 which upheld the great discoverer, when, peering through 
 the darkness, the New World revealed itself to his eye in 
 the glimmering torch, which told him of an unseen land 
 inhabited by man. Hero was evidence of the intelligent 
 service of fire. Well indeed might it have been for Colum- 
 bus had he been obedient to the voice that thus directed his 
 way. All the accompaniments of the voyagers furnished 
 evidence of civilisation. They were clothed with cotton 
 mantles. Their bread was made of Indian corn, and from it 
 also they had brewed a beverage resembling beer. They 
 informed Columbus that thoy had just arrived from a 
 
IX.] 
 
 ALLOYED COPPER AXE-BLADES. 
 
 237 
 
 country, rich, populous, and industrious, situated to tlie 
 west ; and urged him to steer in that direction. But his 
 mind was bent on the discovery of the imaginary strait that 
 was to lead him directly into the Indian seas, and it was 
 left to Cortez to discover the singular seats of native civilisa- 
 tion of Mexico and Central America. - -; 
 
 When at length the mainland was reached, the abundance 
 and extensive use of the metals became apparent ; and as 
 further discoveries brought to the knowledge of the Spaniards 
 the opulent and civilised countries of Yucatan, Mexico, and 
 Peru, they were more and more astonished by the native 
 metallic wealth. When the Spaniards first entered the pro- 
 vince of Tuspan, they mistook the bright copper or bronze 
 axes of the natives for gold, and were greatly mortified 
 after having accumulated them in considerable numbers to 
 discover the mistake they had made. Bernal Diaz narrates 
 that " each Indian had, besides his ornaments of gold, a 
 copper axe, which was very highly polished, with the handle 
 curiously carved, as if to serve equally for an ornament, as 
 for the field of battle. We first thought these axes were 
 niade of an inferior kind of gold ; we therefore commenced 
 taking them in exchange, and in the space of two days had 
 collected more than six hundred ; with which we were no 
 less rej.oiced, as long as tve were ignorant, of their real value, 
 than the Indians with our glass beads." 
 
 Ancient Mexican paintings show that the tribute due by 
 certain provinces of the Mexican empire was paid in wedges 
 of copper ; and Dupaix describes and figures examples of a 
 deposit of two hundred and seventy-six axe-heads, cast of 
 alloyed copper, such as, he observes, " are much sought by 
 the silversmiths on account of their fine alloy." The forms 
 of these, as well as of the chisels and other tools of bronze, 
 are simple, and indicate no great ingenuity in adapting the 
 moulded metal to the more perfect accomplishment of the 
 artificer's or the combatant's requirements. The methods 
 of hafting the axe-blade, as illustrated by Mexican paint- 
 
238 
 
 BRONZE SILVER-MINING TOOL. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 ings, are nearly all of the same rude description as are em- 
 ployed by the modem savage in fitting a handle to his 
 hatchet of flint or stone ; and, indeed, the whole character- 
 istics of the metallurgic and artistic ingenuity of Mexico 
 and Peru are suggestive of immature development ; though, 
 from the nature of Peruvian institutions, the civilisation of 
 the latter, like that of China, may have long existed, with 
 slight and intermittent manifestations of progress. It was 
 indeed, in many respects, the transitional bronze period of 
 the New World, in which not only the arts of an elder 
 stone-period had been very partially modified by metallurgic 
 influences, but in which the sword, or mahguahuitl, made 
 of wood, with blades of obsidian inserted along its edge, 
 the flint or obsidian arrow-head, the stone hatchet, and 
 other weapons, were still in common use, along with those 
 of metal. 
 
 Yet such traces of primitive arts are accompanied with 
 remarkable evidence of progress in some directions. Hum- 
 boldt remarks, in his Vues des CordilUres, on the surpris- 
 ing dexterity shown by the Peruvians in cutting the hardest 
 stones ; and, after reference to the observations of other 
 travellers, he adds: — "I conjectured that the Peruvians 
 had tools of copper, which, mixed with a certain proportion 
 of tin, acquires great hardness. This conjecture has been 
 justified by the discovery of an ancient Peruvian chisel, 
 found at Vilcabamba, near Cuzco, in a silver mine worked in 
 the time of the Incas. This valuable instrument, for which 
 I am indebted to the friendship of the Padre Narcissc 
 Gilbar, is four and seven-tenth inches long, and four-fifths 
 of an inch broad. The metal of which it is composed has 
 been analysed by M. Vauquelin, who found in it 0*94 of 
 copper, and 0"0G of tin." Unfortunately, the composition 
 of Mexican and Peruvian bronzes has hitherto attracted so 
 little attention, that it is impossible to obtain many accurate 
 records of analyses, or to procure specimens to submit to 
 chemical tests. Dr. J. H. Gibbon, of the United States 
 
IX.] 
 
 PERUVIAN BRONZES. 
 
 239 
 
 Mint, favoured me with the analysis of another chisel or 
 crowbar, brought from the neighbourhood of Cuzco by his 
 son. Lieutenant Laidner Gibbon, who formed one of the 
 members of the Amazon Expedition. Through the kind 
 services of Mr. Thomas Ewbank, of the American Ethnolo- 
 gical Society, I also obtained, in addition to results deter- 
 mined by himself, eight specimens of such Peruvian imple- 
 ments, though only a portion of them proved to be of 
 metallic alloys. They were submitted to careful analysis 
 by my colleague. Professor Henry Croft, and the results in 
 reference to the bronzes are given on a subsequent page. 
 Mr. Squier, in the Appendix to his Aboriginal Monuments 
 of the State of New York, engraves an implement found 
 with various Peruvian knives and chisels, about the person 
 of a mummy, taken by Mr. J. H. Blake, of Boston, from an 
 ancient cemetery near Arica. On analysis, it proved to 
 contain about four per cent, of tin. More recently I in- 
 spected a valuable collection of antiquities brought by Mr. 
 Blake from Peru, including a variety of bronze implements ; 
 and he has favoured me with the following results : — 
 " Many years ago, I made a series of analyses of bronze 
 instruments, knives, chisels, hoes, etc., which I found in 
 ancient cemeteries in Peru in connection with embalmed 
 bodies. I have not been able to find my notes made vt the 
 time ; but I know that they consisted of copper and tin 
 only, and that the proportion of the latter varied from up- 
 wards of two to four per cent. After receiving your last 
 letter, I made an analysis of a small knife found by mo, 
 with many other articles, with the body of a man, in the 
 ancient cemetery near Arica, in South Peru. The handle 
 is of the same metal as the blade, and at right angles with 
 it, being joined at the middle. The end is fashioned to 
 represent the head of a llama. On analysis, tho composi- 
 tion proves to be : Copper, 97'87 ; tin, 213." Dr. C. T^ 
 Jackson communicated another analysis of a "Chilian bronze 
 instrument, probably a crowbar," to the Boston Natural 
 
« 
 
 240 
 
 PRIMITIVE MINING TOOLS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Ft 
 
 li'- 
 
 liHi 
 
 
 History Society. It contained 7*615 parts of tin, and '3 
 described by him as a bronze, well adapted for such instru- 
 ments as were to be hammer-hardened.^ The general re- 
 sults indicate a variable range of the tin alloy, from 2 "130 to 
 7*615 per cent. ; which, in so far as any general inference 
 can be drawn from so small a number of examples, shows a 
 more indeterminate and partially developed metallurgy than 
 the analyses of primitive European bronzes disclose. 
 
 Such is all the evidence I have been able to obtain rela- 
 tive to the composition of Peruvian alloys, and the progress 
 indicated thereby in scientific metallurgy. It accords with 
 other evidence of their mining operations. During a recent 
 visit to Peru Mr. James Douglas obtained for me a set of 
 primitive stone mining implements recovered from an 
 ancient shaft, exposed in working the Brillador mine, in 
 the Province of Coquimbo, Chili. They consist of a maul 
 of granite, eight inches long, with a groove wrought round 
 the centre and over the thicker end ; one of diorite, also 
 with a groove about one-third from the thicker end ; a 
 conical hammer of granite ; and another implement made 
 of diorite, apparently designed for pounding the copper ore. 
 It has indentations worked in the sides for the fingers and 
 thumb; and when found was covered at one end with 
 green oxide of copper, as if from use in pounding the ore. 
 Near the mine are ancient graves indicated by circles of 
 stones ; within which the skeletons are disposed in a sitting 
 posture, accompanied by conical bones and rude pottery. 
 Such mining implements were, no doubt, supplemented with 
 others of metal ; but so far as they illustrate the progress of 
 the ancient miners of Chili, the evidence fully accords with 
 the ideas otherwise formed of the Peruvians as a people who 
 had discovered for themselves the rudiments of civilisation, 
 but who had as yet very partially attained to any mastery 
 of the arts which have been matured in modern centuries 
 for Europe. This agrees with the description furnished by 
 
 * Proceedings, B. N. II. S., vol. v. p. 63. 
 
IX.] 
 
 NATIVE METALLURGIC PROCESSES. 
 
 241 
 
 ore. 
 3S of 
 fting 
 tery. 
 dth 
 js of 
 kvith 
 Iwho 
 bioii, 
 bery 
 iries 
 
 Dr. Tschudi of some of the metallurgic processes still 
 practised in Peru. " The Cordillera, in the neighbourhood 
 of Yauli," he remarks, " is exceedingly rich in lead ore 
 containing silver. Within the circuit of a ftiv miles above 
 eight hundred shafts have been made, but they have not 
 been found sufficiently productive to encourage extensive 
 mining works. The difficulties which impede mine-work- 
 ing in these parts are caused chiefly by the dearness of 
 labour and the scarcity of fuel. There being a total want 
 of wood, the only fuel that can be obtained consists of the 
 dried dung of sheep, llamas, and huanacos. This fuel is 
 called taquia. It produces a very brisk and intense flame, 
 and most of the mine-owners prefer it to coal. The process 
 of smelting, as practised by the Indians, though extremely 
 rude and imperfect, is adapted to local circumstauces. All 
 European attempts to improve the system of smelting in 
 these districts have either totally failed, or in theii* results 
 have proved less effective than the simple Indian method. 
 The Indian furnaces cau, moreover, be easily erected in the 
 vicinity of the mines, and when the metal is not very 
 abundant the furnaces may be abandoned without any great 
 sacr fice. For the price of one European furnace the Indians 
 may build more than a dozen, in each of which, notwith- 
 standing the paucity of fuel, a considerably greater quantity 
 of metal may be smelted than in one of European construc- 
 tion." At the village of Yauli, near the mines referred to, 
 situated at an elevation of 13,100 feet above the sea, from 
 twelve to fourteen thousand Indians are congregated to- 
 gether, chiefly engaged in mining, after the fashion handed 
 down to them from generations before the Conquest. Their 
 processes correspond with the imperfect results disclosed by _ 
 the analysis of native alloys ; as well as by other proofs 
 that the Peruvians were also accustomed to work the native 
 copper into tools and personal ornaments for common use, 
 Vt^y much in the same fashion as the ancient metallurgists 
 of the Ohio valley. 
 The contrast which the civilisation alike of Mexico tind 
 VOL. I. g 
 
iL^I 
 
 24a METALLIC TREASURES OF THE INC AS. [chap. 
 
 Peru presents, when compared with the highest arts per- 
 taining to any of the tribes of North America, is well cal- 
 culated to excite admiration. But the wonder of the 
 Spanish conquerors at their gems and gold, the ready cre- 
 dulity of the missionary priests in their anxiety to magnify 
 the gorgeous paganism which they had overthrown, and the 
 patriotic exaggeration of later chroniclers of native descent, 
 have all tended to overdraw the picture of the beneficent des- 
 potism of thelncas of Peru ; or the crueller but not less magni- 
 ficent rule of the Caciques of Mexico. With a willing credulity 
 Spanish historians perpetuated what the Peruvian Garcilasso 
 and the Mexican Ixtlilxochitl related, in their adaptations 
 of native history and traditions to European conceptions. 
 Religious, political, and social analogies to European ideas 
 and institutions, accordingly, strike the modern student 
 with wonder and admiration ; nor has the gifted author of 
 the Conquests of Mexico and Peru always sufiiciently dis- 
 criminated between the glowing romances begot by an 
 alliance between the barbarous magnificence of a rude native 
 despotism and the associated ideas of European institutions. 
 The metallic treasures of the Incas of Peru are probably not 
 exaggerated ; and if so, the precious metals with which 
 their palaces and temples were adorned would have been 
 the index, in any European capital, of a wealth sufficient to 
 employ the merchant-navies of Venice, Holland, or England 
 in the commerce of the world. But in Peru this was the 
 mere evidence of the abundance of the precious metals in a 
 country where they were as little the representatives of a 
 commercial currency as the feathers of the coraquenquc, 
 which were reserved exclusively for the decoration of royalty. 
 The Peruvians occupied a long extent of sea-coast, but 
 no commercial enterprise tempted them to launch their 
 navies on the Pacific, excepting for the most partial coast-- 
 ing transit. The great mass of the people patiently wrought 
 to produce from their varied tropical climates and fer- 
 tile soil the agricultural produce on which the entire com- 
 munity depended ; resembling in this, as v/ell as in the 
 
IX.] 
 
 TRACES OF AN OLDER RACE. 
 
 243 
 
 ii 
 
 r 
 
 "i 
 
 vast structures wrought by a patiently submissive people at 
 the will of their absolute rulers, the great oriental despotisms 
 when in their earliest and least licentious forms. Their own 
 traditions traced the dawn of their government no further 
 back than the twelfth century ; and the characteristics of 
 their imperfect and unequally developed civilisation confirm 
 the inference that they have not in this respect departed 
 from the invariable tendency of historic myth and tradition 
 to exaggerate the national age. Extensive ruins still exist- 
 ing on the shores of Lake Titicaca are affirmed by the Peru- 
 vians to have existed before the Incas arrived. But slight 
 importance can be attached to the traditions of an un- 
 lettered people concerning events of any kind dating four 
 or five centuries back. The authority of Bede is of little 
 value relative to Jute or Anglo-Saxon colonisation less than 
 three centuries before his time ; and the modern New 
 Englander, with deeds and parchments, as well as abundance 
 of printed history to help his tradition, cannot make up his 
 mind as to whether the famous Newport Round Tower was 
 built by a Norse viking of the eleventh, or a New England 
 miller of the seventeenth century. "No account," says 
 Prescott, " assigns to the Inca dynasty more than thirteen 
 princes before the Conquest. But this number is altogether 
 too small to have spread over four hundred years, and would 
 not carry back the foundations of the monarchy, on any 
 probable computation, beyond two centuries and a half — 
 an antiquity not incredible in itself, and which, it may be 
 remarked, does not precede by more than half a century the 
 alleged foundation of the capital of Mexico." Humboldt, 
 in his Yues des Cordilldres, indicates the borders of Lake 
 Titicaca, the district of Callao, and the high plains of 
 Tiahuanaco, as the theatre of ancient American civilisation ; 
 and Prescott, in view of the apparently recent origin of the 
 Incas, assumes that they were preceded in Peru by another 
 civilised race, which, in conformity with native traditions, 
 he would derive from this same cradle-land of South 
 American arts. Beyond thisj however, he does not attcmj)t 
 
244 
 
 PERUVIAN HISTORY. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ^>' 
 
 fM'« 
 
 III 
 
 ^! 
 
 to penetrate into that unchronicled past. Who this people 
 were, and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme 
 for inquiry to the speculative ethnologist ; but it is a land 
 of darkness lying beyond the domain of history. The same 
 mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue to 
 settle on their subsequent annals ; and so imperfect were 
 the records employed by the Peruvians, and so confused 
 and contradictory their traditions, that the historian finds 
 no firm footing on which to stand till within a century of 
 the Spanish conquest. 
 
 In reality only a very small portion of what is called 
 Peruvian history prior to that conquest can be regarded as 
 anything but a historical romance; and the exaggerated 
 conceptions relative to the completeness and consistent de- 
 velopment alike of Peruvian and Mexican civilisation, are 
 based on the old axiom which has so often misled the 
 archaeologist, ex jpede Herculem. 
 
 Vie^^ . however, without exaggeration, the progress 
 in mechanical skill and artistic ingenuity attained by both 
 of the semi-civilised American nations, is very remarkable ; 
 and seems to find its nearest analogy among the modern 
 Chinese and Japanese. Smdl mirrors of polished bronze 
 now in use in Japan exactly reproduce some of those found 
 in the royal tombs of Peru. These tombs of the Incas, and 
 also their royal and other depositories of treasure, have dis- 
 closed many specimens of curious and elaborate metallurgic 
 skill : bracelets, collars, and other personal ornaments of 
 gold, vases of the same abundant precious metal, and 
 iilso of silver ; mirrors of burnished silver and bronze, as 
 well as of obsidian ; polished ma.sks, rings, and cups of the 
 same intractable material ; finely adjusted balances made 
 in silver ; bells both of silver and bronze ; and numerous 
 commoner articles of copper, or of the more useful alloy of 
 copper and tin, of which theii tools were chiefly made. -__ 
 
 But while the arts of civilisation were being fof^fcred on 
 those southern plateaux of the Andes, another seat 'f native 
 American civilisation had been founded on tlie correspona- 
 
IX.] 
 
 THE 2JLTECS AND MEXICANS. 
 
 245 
 
 ing plateaux of the northern continent, and the Aztecs were 
 building up an empire even more marvtllous than that of 
 the Incas. The site of the latter is amonoj the most remark- 
 able of all the scenes consecrated to such memories. On 
 the lofty table-land which lies between the Gulf of Mexico 
 and the Pacific Ocean, at an elevation of nearly seven 
 thousan<l five huLilred feet, the valley of Mexico lies en- 
 girdled by its ramparts of porphyritic rock, like a vast 
 fortress provided by nature for guarding the infancy of 
 American civilisation. Here was the scene of the heroic 
 age of Toltec Art, where the foundations of all later pro- 
 gress were laid, and architecture achieved its earliest 
 triumphs in the New World on the temples and towers of 
 Tula, the ruined remains of which attracted the attention 
 of the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest. But the 
 history of the Toltecs and their ruined edifices stands on 
 the border lines of romance and fable, like that of the 
 Druid builders of Carnac and Avebury. To them, accord- 
 ing to tradition and such historical evidence as is accessible, 
 succeeded their Aztec or Mexican supplanters, along with 
 the Acolhuans, or Tezcucans, as they were latterly called 
 from their capital Tezcuco. Mr. Edward B. Tylor describes 
 an ancient arch v/hich still stands there. It is a skew-bridge 
 of twenty feet span, built with slabs of stone set on edge 
 in the form of a roof resting on two buttresses ; and is an 
 ingenious approximation to the true arch.^ On the opposite 
 shores of the same Mexican lake, the largest of five inland 
 waters that diversified the surface of that great table-land 
 valley, stood Tezcuco and Mexico, the capitals of the two 
 most important states within which the native civilisation 
 of the North American continent developed itself. From 
 the older Toltecans, the encroaching Tezcm^ans are believed 
 to have derived the germs of that progress, which ia best 
 known to us in connection with the true Aztec or Mexican 
 state. Legends of the golden age and heroic races of Ana- 
 huac abound, and liave been rendered into their least extra- 
 
 * Anahuac, p. lo3. 
 

 1' 
 
 
 • , 
 
 
 si 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 246 
 
 ADJUSTMENT OF CALENDAR. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 vagant forms by the patriotic zeal of Ixtlilxochitl, a lineal 
 descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco. But the true 
 Mexicans are acknowledged to be of recent origin, and 
 the founding of Mexico is assigned to a.d. 1326. Among 
 the special evidences of their civilisation is their calendar. 
 By the unaided results of native science the dwellers on 
 the Mexican plateau had effected an adjustment of civil 
 to solar time, so nearly correct that when the Spaniards 
 landed on their coast, their own reckoning, according to the 
 unreformed Julian calendar, was nearly eleven days in error, 
 compared with that of the barbarian nation whose civilisa- 
 tion they so speedily effaced. But the diflference thus noted 
 represented in the European calendar the accumulated error 
 of upwards of sixteen centuries ; so that the approximation 
 of Mexican computation to true solar time is probably only 
 a proof of the recent adjustment of their calendar ; and so 
 confirms the probability of the founding of the Mexican 
 capital within two centuries of its overthrow. But the 
 founders of Tenochtitlan, as the new capital was called, 
 were a vigorous, enterprising, and ferocious race. The later 
 name of Mexico was derived from the Aztec war-god 
 Mexitli, whose favours to his votaries enabled them to form 
 a powerful state by conquest, to enrich themselves with spoil, 
 and to replace the rude structures of their city's founders 
 with substantial and ornate buildings of stone. ■ ^ 
 
 Whatever gloze of mild paternal absolutism may linger 
 around our conceptions of the prehistoric chronicles of Peru, 
 a clearer light illuminates the harsh realities of Mexican 
 sovereignty. The god of war was the supreme deity of the 
 Aztecs, worshipped with hideous rites of blood. Their 
 civil and military codes, according to the narrative of their 
 conquerors, were alike cruel as that of Draco ; and their 
 religious worship was a system of austere fanaticism and 
 loathsome butchery, which seemed to refine the cruelties 
 of the Red Indian savage into a ritual service fit only 
 for the devil. But besides their hideous war-god, the 
 Mexican mythology was graced by a beneficent divinity, 
 
IX.] 
 
 BARBARIAN EXCESSES. 
 
 247 
 
 linger 
 Peru, 
 exican 
 of the 
 Their 
 • their 
 . their 
 I and 
 cities 
 only 
 , the 
 Knity, 
 
 named Quetzalcoatl, the instructor of the Aztecs in the 
 use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government. 
 This and similar elements of Mexican mythology have been 
 regarded as traces of a milder faith inherited from their 
 Toltecan predecessors. The idea is one supported by many 
 probabilities, as well as by some evidence. The early his- 
 tory of the Northmen, however, in which we witness the 
 blending of a rich poetic fancy, wherein lay the germ of 
 later Norman romance and chivalry, with cruelties pertain- 
 ing to a creed little less bloody than that of the Mexican 
 warrior, shows that no such theory is needed to account 
 for the incongruities of the religious system of the Aztecs. 
 In truth, the ferocity of a semi-barbarous people is often 
 nothing more than its perverted excess of energy ; and, as 
 has been already noted in reference to the Caribs, is more 
 easily dealt with, and turned into healthful and beneficent 
 action, than the cowardly craft of the slave. It is only 
 when such hideous rites are consciously engrafted on the 
 usages of a people already far in advance of such a semi- 
 barbarous childhood, as in the adoption of the Inquisition 
 by Spain at the commencement of its modern history, that 
 they prove utterly baneful ; because the nation is already 
 past that stage of progress in which it can naturally out- 
 grow them. 
 
 Hideous, therefore, as were the human sacrifices, wdth 
 their annual thousands of victims ; the oflerings of infants 
 •to propitiate Tlaloc, their rain-god ; and the loathsome 
 banquets on the bodies of their sacrificed victims: — if in- 
 deed this be not an exaggeration of Spanish credulity and 
 fanaticism ; — it is nevertheless difficult to concur in the 
 verdict of the gifted historian of The, Conquest of Mexico, 
 that " it was beneficently ordered by Providence that the 
 land should be delivered over to another race who would, 
 rescue it from the brutish superstitions that daily extended 
 wider and wider, with extent of empire." The rule of the 
 conquerors, with their Dominican ministers of religion, was 
 no beneficent sway ; and its fruits in later times have not 
 
248 
 
 NATIVE GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 .)'' 
 
 ,-> I 
 
 proved of such value as to reconcile the student of that 
 strange old native civilisation of the votaries of Quetzal- 
 coatl, to its abrupt arrestment, at a stage which can only 
 be paralleled by the earlier centuries of Egyptian progress. 
 
 Metallurgic arts were carried in some respects further by 
 the Mexicans than by the Peruvians. Silver, lead, and 
 tin were obtained from the mines of Tasco and Pachuca ; 
 copper was wrought in the mountains of Zacotollan, by 
 means of galleries and shafts opened with persevering toil 
 where the metallic veins Avere imbedded in the solid rock ; 
 and there, as at the Lake Superior copper regions, the 
 traces of such ancient mining have proved the best guides 
 to modern searchers for the ores. The arts of casting, en- 
 graving, chasing, and carving in metal, were all practised 
 with great skill. Vessels l)otli of gold and silver were 
 wrougL: ■ f enormous size : so large, it is said, that a man 
 could not encircle them with his arms ; and the abundant 
 gold was as lavishly employed in Mexico as in Peru, in the 
 gorgeous adornment of temples and palaces. Ingenious 
 toys, birds and beasts with moveable wings and limbs, fish 
 with alternate scales of silver and gold, and personal orna- 
 ments in great variety, were wrought by the Mexican gold- 
 smiths of the precious metals, with such curious art, that 
 the Spaniards acknowledged the suj^eriority of the native 
 workmanship over anything they could achieve. When 
 Cortes first entered the capital of Montezuma in 1513, the 
 Mexican ruler received him in the palace built by his 
 father Axayacatl, and hung round his neck a decoration of 
 the finest native workmanohip. The shell of a species of 
 craw-fiah, set in gold, formed the centre, and massive links 
 of gold completed the collar, from which depended eight 
 orntiments of the same metal, delicately wrought in imita- 
 tion of the prised shell-fish. 
 
 The arts thus practised on the great plateau extended to 
 the most southern limits of the North American continent. 
 The ancient graves of the Isthmus of Panama have been 
 ransacked by thousands in recent years, from the temptation 
 
IX.] 
 
 PANAMA GOLD RELICS. 
 
 249 
 
 fish 
 
 that 
 
 the 
 his 
 n of 
 of 
 inks 
 ight 
 lita- 
 
 1 to 
 cut. 
 )cen 
 tion 
 
 which the gokl relics they contain bold out to their explorers. 
 Those include representations of beasts, birds, and fishes, 
 frogs, and other objects, imitated from nature, often with 
 great skill and ingenuity. One gold frog which I examined 
 had the eyes hollow, with an oval slit in front, and within 
 each a detached ball of gold, which appeared to have been 
 executed in a single casting. This insertion of detached 
 balls is frequently met with in the pottery, as well as in 
 the goldsmith s work of the Isthmus, and is singularly 
 characteristic of a peculiar phase of local art. Human 
 figures, and monstrous or grotesque hybrids wrought in gold, 
 with the head of the cayman, the eagle, and other animals, 
 attached to the human form, are also found in the same 
 graves ; but, so far as my own opportunities of observation 
 enable mc to judge, the human figure generally exhibits 
 inferior imitative skill and execution to the representations 
 of other animate subjects. But all alike display abundant 
 metallurgic art. Soldering as well as casting was known 
 to the ancient goldsmith, and the finer specimens have been 
 finished with the hammer and graving-tool. Judging from 
 the condition of the hum'ni remains found in those huacas 
 of the peninsula, they are probably of a much higher an- 
 tiquity than the era of Mexican civilisation ; and lying as 
 they do in the narrow isthmus between the twin continents, 
 they suggest the probability of a common source for the 
 ovigin of Peruvian and Aztec arts. 
 
 But while the Mexicans wrought their ingenious toys, 
 lavished their inexhaustible resources of gold and silver 
 in personal decoration, and adorned their })ublic edifices 
 with scarcely less boundless profusion than the Peruvians, 
 they had learned to some extent the [irtxcWvn] value of gold 
 and other metals as a convenient currency. By means of 
 this equivalent for the gold and silver coinage of Ktirope, 
 the interchange of commodities in the great markets of 
 Mexico was facilitated, and an important step in the pro- 
 gress towards a higher stage of civilisation secured. This 
 metallic currency consisted of pieces of tin cut in the form 
 
 1 1 ',■ 
 
 ^! 
 
■?»■ 
 
 I «! 
 
 250 
 
 ! 
 
 m 
 
 111 
 
 MEXICAN METALLIC CURRENCY. [chap, 
 
 of a T or stamped with a similar character, and of trans- 
 parent quills filled with gold dust. These were apparently 
 regulated to a common standard by their size : for the use 
 of scales and weights, with which the Peruvians were 
 familiar, appears to have been unknown in Mexico. 
 
 The nature of the Mexican currency accords with the 
 knowledge and experience of a people among whom metal- 
 lurgic arts were of comparatively recent origin. The easily 
 fused tin, and the attractive and accessible gold-dust, sup- 
 plied ready materials for schooling the ingenious metallurgist 
 in the use of the metals. Copper was probably first employed 
 when found in a pure metallic state, as among the old 
 miners of Lake Superior ; while the art of fusing, taught 1)y 
 the Aztec Tubal-Cain, was tried only on the readily-yield- 
 ing tin. By this means the arts of smelting and moulding 
 the ores would be acquired, and applied to copper, silver, 
 and gold, as well as to tin. Accident might suggest the 
 next important stage, that of metallic alloys ; but under 
 the circumstances alike of Peruvian and Mexican civili- 
 sation, progressing in regions abounding with the most 
 attractive and easily-wrought metals, it is not difiicult to 
 conceive of the independent discovery of the useful ])ronze 
 alloy. Yet by the standard composition of their bronze, 
 far more than by the ingenious intricacy of their personal 
 ornaments, utensils, and architectural decorations, the 
 actual progress of the Incas or of the Aztecs may fairly be 
 tested. The delight of the savage in personal adornment 
 precedes even the needful covering of his nakedness, and 
 the same propensity long monopolises the whole inventive 
 ingenuity of a semi-barbarous people ; while the useful 
 bronze tools embody the true germs of incipient civilisation. 
 Tested by such a standard, the metallurgic arts of Peru 
 furnish evidence of very partial development. 
 
 The alloy of copper and tin, when destined for practical 
 use in manufacture, is found to possess the most serviceable 
 qualities when compostnl of about ninety per cent, of cop})er 
 to ten of tin ; and so near is the approximation to this 
 
«■ j»»«>7,' w* ""f ^^•' ■*"'-- 
 
 ,x.] 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PROCESSES, 
 
 25t 
 
 theol^tieal standard among the bronze relics of the ancient 
 worM, that the archaeologists of Europe have been divided 
 in opinion as to whether they should assume a Phoenician 
 or other common origin for the weapons, implements, and 
 personal ornaments of that metal found over the whole 
 continent ; or that the mixed metal, derived from a common 
 centre, was manufactured in various countries of Europe 
 into the objects of diverse form and pattern abounding in 
 their soil, or deposited among their sepulchral offerings. 
 
 But the approximation to a uniform alloy is no more than 
 would inevitably result from the experience of the extreme 
 brittleness resulting from any undue excess of the tin. Ac- 
 cident, or the natural proximity of the metals or ores, as 
 they occur in the mineral regions of England, may have 
 furnished the first disclosure of the important secret. But 
 that once discovered, the subsequent steps were inevitable. 
 Having ascertained that lie could produce a harder and 
 more useful compound than the pure copper by alloying it 
 with tin, the native metallurgist would not fail to vary 
 the proportions of the latter till he had obtained a sufficiently 
 Lvc^r approximation to the best bronze, to answer the 
 purposes for which it was designed. No interchange of 
 experience was necessary to lead the metallurgists of 
 remote regions to similar results ; nor would a closer cor- 
 respondence between the proportionate ingredients of th(^. 
 native American and European bronze than has yet been 
 detected, indicate more than common aims, and the inevi- 
 table experience, consequent on the properties of the varying 
 alloy, leading to corresponding results. 
 
 The following table of analyses of ancient European 
 bronze relics will suffice to show how little foundation there 
 is for the assumption of any common origin for the alloy 
 of which they were made ; and the corresponding evidence 
 of proportionate ingredients disclosed by analyses of native 
 American bronzes, disproves the theory of any European 
 or other foreign source for the nietallurgic arts of the New 
 World. 
 
252 
 
 Ancient European bronzes. 
 
 fCHAP. 
 
 ANALYSES OF ANCIENT BRONZES. 
 
 Im,- 
 
 
 » 
 
 No. 
 1. 
 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Tin. 
 
 Lead. 
 1-78 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Caldron, 
 
 Berwickshire, . | 
 
 92-89 
 
 515 
 
 
 2. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 Duddingston, 
 
 
 88-51 
 
 9-30 
 
 2-30 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 3. 
 
 Kettle, 
 
 Berwickshire, 
 
 
 88-22 
 
 5.63 
 
 5-88 
 
 ■ ■ • 
 
 
 4. 
 
 Axe-head, . 
 
 Mid-Lotliian, 
 
 
 88-05 
 
 1112 
 
 0-78 
 
 « ■ ■ 
 
 
 5. 
 
 Caldfun, 
 
 DiUidingston, 
 
 
 84-08 
 
 719 
 
 8-53 
 
 . • • 
 
 
 6. 
 
 Palstave, 
 
 Fifeshire, 
 
 
 8119 
 
 18-31 
 
 0-75 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 7. 
 
 Vessel, 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 
 88- 
 
 12- 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 Wedge, 
 
 >> 
 
 
 94- 
 
 5 09 
 
 • • • 
 
 OOJ 
 
 9. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 j> • 
 
 
 88-63 
 
 8-54 
 
 2-83 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 10. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 jj • 
 
 
 83-50 
 
 515 
 
 8-35 
 
 300 
 
 . ■ . 
 
 11. 
 
 Lituus, 
 
 Lincolnshire, 
 
 
 88- 
 
 12- 
 
 
 • • • 
 
 ... 
 
 12. 
 
 Roman patella, 
 
 f » 
 
 
 86- 
 
 14- 
 
 ... 
 
 * « • 
 
 ... 
 
 13. 
 
 Spear-hearl, 
 
 »» 
 
 
 86- 
 
 14- 
 
 • • ■ 
 
 • • • 
 
 ■ . . 
 
 14. 
 
 Scabbard, . 
 
 »» 
 
 
 90- 
 
 10- 
 
 ... 
 
 • • • 
 
 • *• 
 
 15. 
 
 Axe palstave. 
 
 Cumberland, 
 
 
 91- 
 
 9- 
 
 ■ • > 
 
 ... 
 
 • . . 
 
 16. 
 
 Axe-head, . 
 
 >> • 
 
 
 88- 
 
 12- 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 17. 
 
 Vessel, 
 
 Cambridgeshire, 
 
 
 88- 
 
 12- 
 
 • * • 
 
 . . . 
 
 
 18. 
 
 Axe-head, . 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 
 91- 
 
 9- 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 19. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 Thames, 
 
 
 89-69 
 
 9-58 
 
 • • • 
 
 0-33 
 
 • ■ • 
 
 20. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 Ireland, 
 
 
 85-62 
 
 1002 
 
 ... 
 
 0-44 
 
 ... 
 
 21. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 '» 
 
 
 90-68 
 
 7-43 
 
 1-28 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 22. 
 
 Axe-head, . 
 
 )} • 
 
 
 90-18 
 
 9-81 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 
 23. 
 
 Axe-head, . 
 
 >» • 
 
 
 89-33 
 
 9-19 
 
 
 ... 
 
 • . I 
 
 24. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 »» 
 
 
 83 61 
 
 10-79 
 
 3-20 
 
 0-58 
 
 • . • 
 
 25. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 King's Co. , Ireland, 
 
 85-23 
 
 J3-11 
 
 1-14 
 
 • • • 
 
 ... 
 
 26. 
 
 Drinking-horn, 
 
 99 99 
 
 79-34 
 
 10-87 
 
 911 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 27. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 Co. Cavan, ,, 
 
 8()-98 
 
 12-57 
 
 ... 
 
 • . . 
 
 0-37 
 
 28. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 99 
 
 98-74 
 
 1-09 
 
 • • - 
 
 0-08 
 
 006 
 
 29. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 Co. Wicklow, ,, 
 
 88-30 
 
 10-92 
 
 0-10 
 
 % * • 
 
 • * * 
 
 30. 
 
 Celt, . 
 
 Co. Cavan, ,, 
 
 95-64 
 
 4-56 
 
 0-25 
 
 
 0-02 
 
 31. 
 
 Spear-head, 
 
 » 
 
 86-28 
 
 12-74 
 
 0-07 
 
 0-31 
 
 . • • 
 
 32. 
 
 Spear-head, 
 
 91 
 
 84-64 
 
 14-01 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 33. 
 
 Scythe, 
 
 Roscommon, ,, 
 
 95-85 
 
 2-78 
 
 0-12 
 
 1-32 
 
 ... 
 
 34. 
 
 Sword-handle, 
 
 >9 
 
 87-07 
 
 8-52 
 
 3-37 
 
 • .. 
 
 . ■ • 
 
 35. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 II 
 
 87-94 
 
 11-35 
 
 0-28 
 
 , , 
 
 • • » 
 
 36. 
 
 Dagger, 
 
 II 
 
 90-72 
 
 8-25 
 
 0-87 
 
 • > • 
 
 ... 
 
 37. 
 
 Cliisel, 
 
 II 
 
 91 03 
 
 8-39 
 
 ... 
 
 ■ « • 
 
 ... 
 
 38. 
 
 Caldron, 
 
 19 
 
 88.71 
 
 9-46 
 
 1-66 
 
 003 
 
 ... 
 
 39. 
 
 Sword, 
 
 Franco, 
 
 87-47 
 
 12-53 
 
 • • • 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 40. 
 
 Spear-head, . 
 
 N orthumbcrland. 
 
 9112 
 
 7-97 
 
 0-77 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 No8. 1-6. Dr. (Joorgo Wilson. 
 
 7-8. Dr. J. H. Oibbon, U.S. Mint. 
 910. Professor Davy. 
 
 11-18. Dr. Pearson, iVafo«o/)A. Trann. 1796. 
 19-24. J. A. Philips, Mem. Chvm. Sot:, iv. p. 288. 
 25, 26. Dr. Donovan, V/i,'m. anzrUe, 186(>, p. 176. 
 27-38. Mr. J. W. Mallet, Tnuimctions Jt. I. A. vol. xxii. p. 326. 
 
 39. Mongez, M6in. dr r/nstUut, 
 
 40. Dr. E. Macadam, Piocre ' ^ * S!fot. viii. 300. 
 
 In No. 31 is also Cobalt, 09; im Isy, ., u( my, '04; and in No. 41, 
 Amuuio, '03. 
 
IX.] 
 
 TESTS OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 25s 
 
 n 
 
 From the varied results which so many analyses dis- 
 close, ranging as they do from 79 to 98 per cent, of 
 copper ; as well as from the diversity of the ingredients : 
 it is abundantly obvious that no greater uniformity is 
 traceable, than might be expected to result from the opera- 
 tions of isolated metallurgists, very partially noquainted 
 with the chemical properties of the standard alloy, and 
 guided for the most part by the experience derived from 
 successive results of their manufacture. It is thus cippa- 
 rent that the various exigencies of the metallurgist, under 
 the control of a very ordinary amount of practical skill, would 
 lead to the determination of the best proportions for this 
 useful alloy ; though it would only be after the accumulated 
 fruits of isolated experiment had been combined, that any- 
 thing more than some crude approximation to the best 
 composition of bronze would be determined. Hence the 
 value of analytical evidence in determining the degree of 
 civilisation of Mexico and Peru, as indicated by their metal- 
 lurgic arts. For the general requirements of a tool, or 
 weapon of war, where a sufficient hardness must be ob- 
 tained without any great liability to fracture, the best 
 proportions pn ed to be about 90 per cent, of copper to 10 
 of tin ; or with a .small proportion of lead in lieu of part of 
 the tin : which, as further experience taught the primitive 
 worker in bronze, communicates to the - utting instrument 
 a greater degree of toughness, and consequently diminishes 
 its liability to fracture. But where great hardness is the 
 chief requisite, as in (certain engraving, carving, and gem- 
 cutting tools, the mere increase of tin in the alloy supplies 
 the requisite quality : until the excessive brittleness of the 
 product gives warning that the true limit has been exceeded. 
 In this, I doubt not, lies the whole secret of Mexican and 
 Peruvian metallurgy, which has seemed so mysterious, and 
 thereibre so marvellous to the most sagacious inquirers. 
 
 The follow ing table furnishes the results of analyses of 
 various ancient American bronzes. Few (is the examples 
 
254 
 
 ANCIENT AMERICAN BRONZES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 are, they afford definite illustration of the subject under 
 review, and supply some means of comparison with the 
 data already furnish*, relative to the ancient bronzes of 
 Europe. 
 
 ANALYSES OF ANCIENT AMERICAN BRONZES. 
 
 No. 
 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Tin. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 1. 
 
 Chisel from silver mines, Cuzco, 
 
 94- 
 
 6- 
 
 • 
 
 2. 
 
 Chisel from Cuzco, . 
 
 92-385 
 
 7-015 
 
 
 3. 
 
 Knife from grave, Atacania, 
 
 97-87 
 
 2-13 
 
 
 4. 
 
 Knife „ „ 
 
 96- 
 
 4- 
 
 
 6. 
 
 Crowbar from Chili, 
 
 92385 
 
 7-615 
 
 
 6. 
 
 Knife from Amaro, . 
 
 95 -604 
 
 3 965 
 
 0-371 
 
 7. 
 
 Perforated axe. 
 
 96- 
 
 4- 
 
 
 8. 
 
 Personal ornament, Truigilla, . 
 
 95-440 
 
 4-560 
 
 
 9. 
 
 Bodkin from female grave, do., 
 
 96-70 
 
 3-30 
 
 
 Nos. 1. Humboldt. 
 
 2. Dr. J. H. Gibbon. 
 3, . J. H. Blake, Esq. 
 
 Nos. 5. Dr. T. C. Jackson. 
 6, 7. Dr. H. Croft. 
 8, 9. T. Ewbank, Esq. 
 
 The compaiison of this with the previous table indicates 
 a smaller amount of tin in the American bronze than in 
 that of ancient Europe. For some Egyptian spear-heads 
 Gmelin gives, copper 77*60, tin 22*02 ; and the composition 
 of ancient weapons, armour, vessels, and coins, seems to 
 indicate such a systematic variation of proportions as implies 
 the result of experience in adapting the alloy for the specific 
 purpose in view. A much larger number of analyses w^ould 
 be desirable as data from which to generalise on the metal- 
 lurgic skill developed independently by native American 
 civilisation ; but the examples adduced seem to show that 
 there is no lost secret for Europe to discover. 
 
 The native metallurgist had learned the art of alloying 
 his ductile copper with the still softer tin, and producing 
 by their chemical admixture a harder, tougher metal than 
 cither. But he does not appear to have carried his obser- 
 vation so liiv as to ascertain the most efficiont proportions 
 of Oie comlnuing metals; ift even to have made any very 
 
 li^ li 
 
IX.] 
 
 THE NATIVE METALLURGIST. 
 
 255 
 
 definite approximation to a fixed rule, further than to use 
 with great moderation the alloying tin. He had discovered, 
 but not entirely mastered, a wonderful secret, such as in 
 the ancient world had proved to lie at the threshold of all 
 higher truths in mechanical arts. He was undoubtedly ad- 
 vancing, slowly but surely, on the direct course of national 
 elevation ; and the centuries which have followed since the 
 conquests of Cortes and Pizarro might have witnessed in 
 the New World triumphs not less marvellous in the pro- 
 gress of civilisation tlian those wlii(;h distinguish the England 
 of Victoria from that of the first Tudor. But native science 
 and art were abruptly arrested in their progress by the 
 Spanish conquistadors ; and it is difficult to realise tlio 
 conviction that either Mexico or Peru has gained any 
 adequate equivalent for the loss which thus debars us from 
 the solution of some of the most interesting problems cotl- 
 nected with the progress of the human race. Amid all the 
 exclusiveness of China, and the isolation of Japan, there is 
 still an unknown (juantity among the elements of their 
 civilisation derived from the same sources as our own. But 
 the America of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was 
 literally another world, securely guarded from external 
 influences. Nevertheless while all appears to have been 
 self-originated, we meet everywhere with affinities to the 
 arts of man elsewhere, and trace out the processes by which 
 he has been guided, from the first promptings of a rational 
 instinct to the intelligent development of many later steps 
 of reason and experience. 
 
256 
 
 EARTH-P YRAMIDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ■IM-t 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MOUND -BUILDERS. 
 
 KARTH-PTRAMIDS— MONUMKNT8 OF THE MOUND-BUILDEBS— SEATS OP ANCIENT POPU- 
 LATION—DIFFERENT CLASSES OP WORKS— ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS--NATURAL 
 SITES — FORT HILL, OHIO — IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS— ANALOGOUS STRONGHOLDS 
 — FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES — SACRED ENCLOSURES— NEWARK EAGLE MOUND — GEO- 
 METRICAL EARTHWORKS— PLAN OP NEWARK EARTHWORKS, OHIO -A STANDARD 
 OP MKASUREMENT — DIVERSITY OF WORKS — THE CINCINNATI TABLET- A GEO- 
 METRICAL INSTRUMENT— TRACES OF EXTINCT ARTS. 
 
 I 
 
 \ - 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 The progress hitherto noted hiiH related chiefly to the 
 tools of the woiKniun. In Mexico, and HtilliiHtreiij Central 
 Au\oriiMi and Peru, thoae wjmo appHed both to Bcul|)ture 
 and architecture on a grand scale. But some of the most 
 singular memorials of the primltlv^e nrclijli'chim of the 
 New AVorld survive in the form of gigantic earth woiks, 
 perpetuating in their construction remarkable evidence of 
 geometrical skill. 
 
 Along tht broad levels drained by lliB AllsslMHlpjij nlld IM 
 numer</«ss tributaries traces of America's allophylian popu- 
 lation abound; and the Ohio vnlh'y )m ji|o (!|flj|ll«'|l||| ('/»- 
 ■larkablf for the nunnlier and magiiihnbj of sucli worlcs. 
 The Ohio and ifcs tributary streams flow through a flne un- 
 daladng, fertile country, which now" fornm (tiiu of llio ginMl- 
 centres of popaiation : and the evidence of modfun enterprise 
 aiwi skill whki mbouuds there gives additional lliieltjst («j 
 tnictas which disclose to ns proof that this va«t aiiiii Is not 
 nom rescu^^d for th^^ fn-^ time from the primeval forest, with 
 its ^ild fa.— ..ii - ...i wilder s;.vage num. 
 
^ ^.r^rt-Z-^-s.. ."fV^.^T^Tl^ST 
 
 X.] MONUMENTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS, 257 
 
 In a region such as this, attracting population to the 
 broad alluvial terraces overlooking its smoothly-flowing 
 rivers, it was natural that the building instinct of man 
 should first employ itself on earthworks ; and that the 
 monuments should assume a pyramidal form. The great 
 mound of Miamisburg, Ohio, is sixty-eight feet high, and 
 eight hundred and fifty-two feet in circumference at its 
 base. The more famous Grave Creek Mound of Virginia 
 rises to a height of seventy feet, and measures at its base 
 one thousand feet in circumference. Other and still larger 
 earthworks have been noted, such as the truncated pyramid 
 at Cahokia, Illinois, which, while it remained intact, occu- 
 pied an area upwards of two thousand feet in circumference, 
 and reared its level summit, of several acres in extent, to a 
 height of ninety feet. But this last belongs to a difierent 
 class from the sepulchral mounds which appear to be un- 
 surpassed by any known works of their kind. " We have 
 seen mounds," remarks Flint, an American topographer, 
 with a just appreciation of the relation of these earthworks 
 to the features of the surrounding landscape, " which would 
 require the labour of a thousand men employed on our 
 canals, with all their mechanicHl aids, and the improved 
 luiplemeiits of their labour, for mouths. We have more 
 ^)m once hesitated in view of one of those prodigious 
 tljoUii(|l3, ^\\\\\\\\>\ jt were not really a natural hill But 
 they are uniformly so tijacea, ih reference to the adjacent 
 country, and their coiifullnfltjon j« m Unirjue and sifnilar, 
 rtirti tjb eye hesitttloa long h) fefeiring \\m\\ to the <lass 0/ 
 ttl'tJll«j)f^| ^»f'pn)/|nll«(" ^\w^ expioratj(»n of these huge earth 
 pyramitlii \m «ofc ftt l'«st my <i<mbts m tii il/ej/- a/j)fj//|«| 
 lili^llli} ninl has, moreover, tdit^MwA ll/(i mi iliiii r//^jr 
 urn HUuiikmm erected to |)er|»eliiate the ttmmtj of tiju 
 linnourefl dead ill ages utterly forgotten, H\\i\ hy A tath ^f 
 which they preserve /dni'ist ll^/i fniU remaining veHtiges. 
 
 T'he w-nks of the Moimd Himm eitend over h wide 
 area, and include ninny ntiief ^U'Mtim htsuim limH (4 ^ 
 
 )9.h h 
 
258 
 
 SEATS OF ANCIENT POPULATION. 
 
 [chap 
 
 N-fl 
 
 sepulchral character. The people by whom they were exe- 
 cuted must have been in a condition very different from 
 the forest tribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 Nevertheless, though congregated at many favourite points 
 in large communities, they may have been isolated by ex- 
 tensive tracts of forest from the regions beyond the river- 
 systems on which they were settled. The country lying 
 remote from the larger tributaries of the Mississippi was 
 probably in the era of the Mound-Builders, as in later times, 
 covered with forest ; while perchance on outlying regions, 
 or beyond the great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, the pro- 
 genitors of modern Indian tribes lurked : like the barbarians 
 of ante -christian Europe, beyond the Rhine and the Baltic. 
 The fertile valley of the Scioto appears to have been one 
 of the seats oi densest population, as indicated by the 
 numerous works which diversify its surface. Correspond- 
 ing evidence prespTves the traces of an equally numerous 
 population in th' Miami Valley ; and the mounds and 
 earthworks of various kinds throughout the state of < hio are 
 estimated at between eleven and twelve thousand. They 
 are stated to be scarcely less numerous on the Kenhawas in 
 Virginia than c n the Scioto and Miamis, and are abundant 
 on the White River and Wabash, as also upon the Kentucky, 
 Cumberland, Tennessee, and numerous other tributaries 
 of the Ohio and Mississippi. Works accumulated in such 
 numbers, and, including many of great magnitude and ela- 
 borateness of design, executed by the combined labour of 
 large bodies of workmen, afford indisputable evidence of a 
 settled and industrious population. Beyond those carefully 
 explored regions, traces of other ancient structures have 
 been observed at widely separated points ; though caution 
 must be exercised in generalising from data furnished by 
 casual and inexperienced observers. All primitive earth- 
 works, whether for defence, sepulchral memorials, or religious 
 rites, have certain features in common ; and the tendency 
 of the popular mind is rather to exaggerate chance reseni- 
 
 I 
 
X.] 
 
 DIFFEREISrr CLASSES OF IVORKS. 
 
 259 
 
 blances into forced analogies and parallels, than to exercise 
 any critical discrimination. Including, however, all large 
 earthworks essentially dissimilar from the slight structures 
 of the modern Indian, they appear to stretch from the 
 upper waters of thi Ohio to the westward of Lake Erie, and 
 thence along Lake Michigan, nearly to the Copper Regions 
 of Lake Superior. Examples of a like character have been 
 traced throug .i Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Nebraska Territory ; 
 while in the south their area is bounded by the shores of the 
 Gulf of Florida and the Mexican territory, where they seem 
 gradually to luse their distinctive character, and pass into 
 the great t( ocaliis of a higher developed Mexican architec- 
 ture. Their affinities are indeed more southern than northern. 
 Tiiey are scarcely, if at all, to ^*o found to the eastward of 
 the watershed between tho Mississippi and the Athintic, in 
 the States of Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia , and 
 they have been rightly designated, from their chief site, the 
 Ancient Monuments of the MississippiValley, including those 
 of its tributaries, and especially of the valley of the Ohio. 
 There their localities fully accord with those which, in the pri- 
 mitive history of tlie Old World, reveal the most abundant 
 traces of an aboriginal population, in their occupation of the 
 broad alluvial terraces, or " river bottoms," as they are styled. 
 To the north the memorials of an ancient population are of 
 a different character ; and the earthworks in the vicinity 
 of the Great Lakes must be classed by themselves, as indi- 
 cating distinct customs and rites. 
 
 The remarkable works thus traceable over so large an 
 extent of the North American continent admit of being 
 primarily arranged into the two subdivisions of Enclosi res 
 and Mounds, and those again embrace a variety of works 
 evidently designed for very different uses. Under the first 
 of these heads are included the fortifications or strongholds ; 
 the sacred enclosures, destined, as is assvmed, for religious 
 rites ; and numerous miscellaneous works of "^he same class, 
 generally symmetrical in structure, but the probable use of 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
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 J 
 
 z 
 
 4 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 I^|2j8 |2.5 
 ta M 12.2 
 Lo 12.0 
 
 m 
 
 Hi 
 
 u 
 
 I: 
 I 
 
 ' 8BBaip 
 
 1 
 
 1 *^2^- 1 '4 
 
 II .. 111^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
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 6" - 
 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 Hiotographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporalion 
 
 ^ 
 
 V 
 
 
 <^ 
 
 V 
 
 lawn/MAmsTRQiT 
 
 WIUTM.N.Y. 145M 
 (7I«) •72-4S03 
 
 
 ;\ 
 
I 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^4^ 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
26o 
 
 ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I 
 
 which it is difficult to determine. The second subdivision 
 embraces the true mound-buildings, including what have 
 been specially designated sacrificial, sepulchral, temple, and 
 animal mounds. All partake of characteristics pertaining 
 to a broad level country ; but this is nowhere so strikingly 
 apparent as where mounds seem to have been purposely 
 erected as obser'^^atories or points of sight from whence to 
 survey the works elaborated on a gigantic scale on the level 
 plain. In addition to the s^rikiug features which their 
 external aspect exhibits : v/herever they have been excavated 
 interesting velics of the ancient builders have been disclosed, 
 adding many graphic illustrations of their social condition, 
 and of the artistic and industrial arts of the period to which 
 they pertain. 
 
 The British hill-forts, the remarkable vitrified forts of 
 Scotland, and the larger strongholds of the British abori- 
 gines, such as the ingenioi^ circumvallotions of the White 
 Caterthun overlooking the valley of Strathmore, all derive 
 their peculiar character from the mountainous features of 
 the country ; v:hile on the low ground, under the shadow 
 of the Ocliils, the elaborate earthworks of the Camp of 
 Ardoch show the strikingly contrasting castrametatiou of 
 the Koman invaders. The ancient raths of Ireland, which 
 abound in the level districts of that country, as well as on 
 heights where stone is not readily accessible, also furnish 
 highly interesting illustrations of earthworks with a special 
 cliaracter derived from the features of their localities. An 
 earthen dune or rath, as in the celebrated Rath Keltair at 
 Downpatrick, occupies a commanding site, where it is 
 strongly entrenched, with a considciable space of ground 
 enclosed within its outworks. The celebrated Hill of l^ani, 
 in the county of Meath, ceased, according to tradition, to 
 bo the chief seat of tlic Irish kings, since its desertion in the 
 latter part of tlie sixth century, shortly after the death of 
 Dermot, the son of Fergus. It appears to have been a for- 
 tified city ; and now, after the devastations of thirteen 
 
[chap. 
 
 X.] 
 
 NATURAL SITES. 
 
 261 
 
 .vision 
 ; have 
 e, and 
 aining 
 kingly 
 'posely 
 nco to 
 e level 
 1 their 
 avated 
 iclosed, 
 idition, 
 » which 
 
 brts of 
 
 I abori- 
 White 
 derive 
 
 iures of 
 hadow 
 
 imp of 
 ion of 
 which 
 1 as on 
 furnish 
 special 
 s. An 
 Itair at 
 it is 
 ground 
 if Tara, 
 ion, to 
 in the 
 ?iith of 
 a for- 
 hirtecn 
 
 c 
 
 tuft 
 
 centuries, its dunes, circumvallations and trenches, present 
 many interesting points of comparison with the more exten- 
 sive earthworks of the Mississippi valley. But n'^ither the 
 Scottish White Caterthun, nor the Irish Eath Keltair, or 
 even the Rath High of Tara Hill, can compare with the 
 remarkable American stronghold of Fort Hill, Ohio, or 
 Fort Ancient on the Little Miami River, in the same State. 
 The valley of the Mississippi is a vast sedimentary basin 
 extending from the AUeghanies to the Rocky Mountains. 
 Through this the great river and its numerous tributaries 
 have made their way for countless ages, working out shallow 
 depressiors in the plain, on which are recorded successive 
 epochs of change in the terraces that mark the deserted 
 levels of ancient channels. The edges of these table-lands 
 bordering on the valleys are indented by numerous ravines ; 
 and the junctions of many lesser streams with the rivers 
 have fo:7ned nearly detached peninsulas, or in some cases 
 tracts of considerable elevation insulated from the original 
 table-land. Many of those bluft' headlands, peninsulas, and 
 isolated hills presented all the requisite adapt^.tions for 
 native strongholds. They have, accordingly, been fortified 
 with great labour and skill. Embankments and ditches 
 enclose the whole space, varying in strength according to 
 the natural resources of the ground. The approaches are 
 guarded by trenches and overlapping walls, more or less 
 numerous in different forts ; and have occasionally a mound 
 alongside of the other defences of the approach, but rising 
 above the rest of the works, as if designed both for out-look 
 and additional defence. In some few cases the walls of 
 these enclosures are of stone, but if they were ever charac- 
 terised by any attempt at regular masonry all traces of it 
 have disappeared, and there seems little reason for suppos- 
 ing that such walls differed in essential character from the 
 earthworks. No cement was used, and in all probability 
 we have in them only the substitution of stone heaps instead 
 of earth-banks, owing to special local facilities. 
 
 
262 
 
 FORT HILL, OHIO. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 One of the simplest, but most extensive of those primitive 
 strongholds, is Fort Hill, Ohio. The defences occupy the 
 summit of a height, elevated about five hundred feet above 
 the bed of Bush Creek, which flows round two sides of the 
 hill, close to their precipitous slope. Along the edge of this 
 hill a deep ditch has been cut, and the materials taken 
 from it have been piled up into an embankment, rising from 
 six to fifteen feet above the bottom of the ditch. In its 
 whole extent the wall measures eight thousand two hundred 
 and twenty-four feet, or upwards of a mile and a half in 
 length ; and encloses an area of forty-eight acres, now covered 
 with gigantic forest-trees. One of them, a chestnut, mea- 
 sured twenty-one feet, and an oak, though greatly decayed, 
 twenty-three feet in circumference, while the trunks of 
 immense trees lay around in every stage of decay. Such 
 was the aspect of Fort Hill, Ohio, a few years ago, and it 
 is probably in no way changed now. Dr. Hildrcth counted 
 eight hundred rings of annual growth in a tree which grew 
 on one of the mounds at Marietta, Ohio ; and Messrs. Squier 
 and Davis, from the age and condition of the forest, rscribed 
 an antiquity to its deserted site of considerably more than 
 a thousand years. In their present condition, therefore, 
 the walls of " Fort Hill " are ruins of an older date than 
 the most venerable stronghold of the Normans of England ; 
 and we see as little of their original completeness, as in the 
 crumbling Norman keep we are able to trace all the com- 
 plex system of bastions, curtains, baileys, buttress-towers, 
 and posterns, of the military architecture of the twelfth cen- 
 tury. Openings occur in the walls, in some places on the 
 steepest points of the hill, where access is impossible ; and 
 where, therefore, we must rather suppose that platforms 
 may have been projected to defend more accessible points. 
 The ditch has in many places been cut through sandstone 
 rock as well as soil ; and at one point the rock is quarried 
 out so as to leave a mural front about twenty feet high. 
 Large ponds or artificial resjrvoirs for water have been 
 
X.] 
 
 IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS. 
 
 263 
 
 ►CI 
 
 made within the enclosure ; and at the southern point, 
 where the natural area of this stronghold contracts into a 
 narrow and nearly insulated projection terminating in a 
 bold bluff, it rises to a height of thirty feet above the 
 bottom of the ditch, and has its own special reservoirs, as 
 if here were the keep and citadel of the fortress : doubt- 
 less originally strengthened with palisades and military 
 works, of which every trace had disappeared before the 
 ancient forest asserted its claim to the deserted fortalice. 
 Here then, it is obvious we look on no temporary retreat of 
 some nomadic horde, but on a military work of great mag- 
 nitude ; which, even with all the appliances of modern 
 engineering skill, would involve the protracted operations 
 of a numerous body of labourers, and when completed must 
 have required a no less numerous garrison for its defence. 
 The contrast is very striking between such elaborate works 
 and the most extensive of those still traceable in Western 
 New York the origin of which appears to be correctly 
 assigned to Iroquois and other tribes known to have been in 
 occupation of their sites in comparatively recent times. 
 
 Among the native Indian tribes who have come under 
 direct observation of Europeans, none played a more pro- 
 minent part than the Iroquois. At the period of Ducch 
 disco s^ery in the beginning of the seventeenth century, they 
 occupied the territory between the Hudson and the Genesee 
 rivers, of which they continued to maintain possession for 
 nearly two centuries, in defiance of warlike native foes, and 
 the more formidable aggression of the French invaders. 
 Their numbers, at the period of their greatest prosperity, 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century, have been 
 variously estimated from 70,000, which La Hontan assigned 
 to them, to the more probable estimate of 25,000 given by 
 the historian of their League. Very cxjiggerated pictures 
 have been drawn by some modern writers of the Iroquois 
 confederacy. It was a union of tribes of savage hunters, 
 among whom only the germs of incipient civilisation are 
 
264 
 
 ANALOGOUS STRONGHOLDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 traceable. They had indeed acquired settled habits, and 
 devoted themselveu to some extent to agriculture. But 
 with all the matured arts resulting from combined action 
 in the maintenance of their territory for successive genera- 
 tions against fierce hostile tribes, and the defence of an 
 extensive frontier constantly exposed to invasion, the traces 
 of the Iroquois strongholds are of so slight a description 
 that many of them have already been obliterated by the 
 plough. 
 
 From the facts thus presented to our consideration, it is 
 obvious that the highest estimate we can entertain of the 
 powers of combination indicated by the famous League of 
 the Iroquois, furnishes no evidence of a capacity for the con- 
 struction and maintenance of works akin to the strongholds 
 of the Mound-Builders in the Ohio valley. Striking as is 
 the contrast which the Iroquois present to more ephemeral 
 savage tribes, the remains of their earthworks present in 
 some respects a greater contrast to those of the Mound- 
 Builders than the latter do to the elaborate architecture of 
 Mexico and Yucatan. There are indeed points of resem- 
 blance between the strongholds of the two, as there are 
 between them and the British hill-forts, or any other earth- 
 works erected on similar sites ; but beyond such general 
 elements of comparison, — equally interesting, but as little 
 indicative of any community of origin as the correspondence 
 traceable between the flint and stone weapons in use by 
 the builders of both, — there is nothing in such resemblances 
 calculated to throw any light on the origin of those remark- 
 able monuments of the New World. It is rather from the 
 contrast between the two that we may turn the remains of 
 Iroquois defences to account, as suggestive of a greatly 
 more advanced condition of social life and the arts of a 
 settled population among the Mound-Builders of the Mis- 
 sissippi and its tributaries. 
 
 Further proofs of the settled character of th: ancient 
 population arc furnished by another class of defensive 
 
 [ 
 
X.] 
 
 FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES. 
 
 works, supposed to mark the sites of fortified towns. One 
 of these, called " Clark's Work," on the north fork of Point 
 Creek, in the Scioto valley, embraces an area of one hundred 
 and twenty-seven acres ; and encloses within its circum- 
 vallations sacrificial mounds, and symmetrical earthworks 
 assumed with every probability to have been designed for 
 religious or civic purposes. A stream has been turned into 
 an entirely new channel, in order to admit of the completed 
 circuit of the walls. " The embankments measure together 
 nearly three miles in length ; and a careful computation 
 shows that, including mounds, not less than three million 
 cubic feet of earth were used in their composition."^ 
 Within the enclosures thus laboriously executed, many of 
 the most interesting relics of ancient art have been dug up, 
 including several coiled serpents of carved stone, carefully 
 enveloped in sheet mica and copper ; pottery, fragments of 
 carved ivory, discoidal stones, and numerous fine sculptures. 
 It is obvious that the population capable of furnishing 
 the requisite labour for works of so extensive a nature must 
 have been numerous, and its resources for the maintenance of 
 such a phalanx of workers proportionally abundant. The 
 garrisons of the great strongholds, and the population that 
 found shelter within such mural defences as *' Clark's 
 Work," must also have been very large, requiring for 
 their subsistence the contributions of an extensive district. 
 But this only accords with other proofs of the condition of 
 the Mound-Builders as a settled people. When we turn 
 from the consideration of single large fortifications crown- 
 ing the insulated heights, and estimate the number and 
 extent of mounds, symmetrical enclosures, and works of 
 various kinds connected with the arts of peace and the rites 
 of religious worship, which give so striking a character to the 
 river valleys and terraces, it is no longer possible to doubt 
 that many sections of this fertile region were once before 
 filled by an industrious, settled population. 
 
 — * Anciant Monuments of the Miealsslppi Valley, pp. 20-29, plate x. ^ -~ 
 
w 
 
 wm^fmm^m^smmmmmmKmmmm 
 
 266 
 
 SACRED ENCLOSURES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 The Sacred Enclosures have been separated from the 
 military works of the Mound-Builders on very obvious 
 grounds. Their elaborate fortifications occupy isolated 
 heights specially adapted for defence ; whereas the broad 
 river terraces have been selected for their religious works. 
 There, on the great unbroken levels, they form groups of 
 symmetrical enclosures, square, circular, elliptical, and octa- 
 gonal, with long connecting avenues, suggesting compari- 
 sons with the British Avebury, or the Hebridean Callernish ; 
 with the Breton Carnac ; or even with the temples and 
 Sphinx-avenues of the Egyptian Karnak and Luxor. 
 
 The predominant impression suggested by the great mili- 
 tary earthworks of th3 Mound-Builders is that of the action 
 of a numerous population, co-operating under the guidance 
 and authority of approved leaders, with a view to the 
 defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications such 
 as that of " Clark's Work " in the Scioto Valley, or " Fort 
 Ancient" on the Little Miami Kiver, are constructed on well- 
 chosen hills or blufis, and strengthened by ditches, mounds, 
 and complicated approaches ; but the lines of earthwork, 
 like those of the great Scottish hill-forts, are everywhere 
 adapted to the natural features of the site. With the 
 sacred enclosures it is wholly different. Some of these also 
 do, indeed, impress the mind with th.a imposing scale of 
 their embankments. On first entering the great circle at 
 Newark, and looking across its broad trench at the lofty 
 embankment overshadowed with full-grown forest trees, my 
 thoughts reverted to the Antonine vallum, which by like 
 evidence still records the presence of the Roman masters of 
 the world in North Britain. But after driving over a circuit of 
 several miles embracing the remarkable group of earthworks 
 of which this is only a single feature, and satisfying myself 
 by personal observation of the existence of parallel avenues 
 which have been traced for nearly two miles ; and of the 
 grand central oval, circle, and octagon, the smallest of 
 which measures upwards of huii->t-mile in circumference : 
 
X.] 
 
 KiEWARK EAGLE MOUND. 
 
 267 
 
 all idea of mere combined labour is lost in the higher con- 
 viction of manifest skill, and even science. The angles of 
 the octagon are not coincident, but the sides are very nearly 
 equal ; and the enclosure approaches so closely to a perfect 
 figure that its error is only demonstrated by actual survey. 
 Connected with it by parallel embankments 350 feet long, 
 is a true circle, measuring 2880 feet in circumference ; and 
 distant nearly a mile from this, but connected with it by 
 an elaborate series of earthworks, is the circular structure 
 above referred to. Its actual form is an ellipse, the respective 
 diameters of which are 1250 feet, and 1150 feet, respec- 
 tively ; and it encloses an area of upwards of 30 acres. 
 
 At the entrance of i-his great circle the enclosing embank- 
 ment curves outward on either side for a distance of 100 
 feet, leaving a level way between the ditches, 80 feet wide. 
 The earthen mound, which is here higher than at any other 
 point, measures about 30 feet from the bottom of tie ditch 
 to the summit. The area of the enclosure is so nearly a 
 perfect level that Mr. J. M. Dennis, to whose intimate local 
 knowledge I was indebted for a thorough survey of the 
 works, informed me that he had observed during the rains 
 of the previous spring the water stood at a uniform level 
 nearly to the edge of the ditch. In the centre of this 
 enclosure is an earthen mound, still called " The Eagle." Mr. 
 Squier says of it : "It much resembles some of the animal- 
 shaped mounds of Wisconsin, and was probably designed 
 to represent a bird with expanded wings." It has been 
 opened and found to contain a hearth, or "altar." The fact 
 is important ; as it distinguishes it in this respect essen- 
 tially from the emblematic mounds of Wisconsin, and tends 
 to confirm the idea that the great circle and its related 
 groups of earthworks all bore some reference to sacred 
 games, or other strange rites of religion, once practised 
 within their circumvallations. But successive excavations 
 have greatly marred the original contour of the mound ; 
 and now that, with a view to the preservation of the prin- 
 
 V'^ 
 
 r f« 
 
268 
 
 GEOMETRICAL EARTHWORKS. 
 
 [chap. X. 
 
 cipal earthwork, it has been secured as the Licking County 
 fair ground, the erection of a grand stand on the summit of 
 the Eagle Mound has contributed still further to obscure 
 the traces of its primary form. 
 
 From the elliptical enclosure a wide avenue of two dis- 
 similar parts, seemingly constructed without relation to each 
 other, leads to a square of twenty acres, with seven mounds 
 disposed symmetrically within the enclosing walls, and 
 numerous other works occupy hundreds of acres with their 
 geometrical configurations. But in spite of the intelligent 
 interest which prevails in reference to those remarkable 
 monuments of an ancient people, the industrial operations 
 of the modern occupants of their sites ave fast obliterating 
 all but the most prominent works. In the great octagon I 
 noticed a difference of nearly five feet between the height 
 of the embankments still standing on uncleared land, and 
 those portions which have been long under the plough. 
 But for the aid of my intelligent guide I should have found 
 it impossible to trace out the indications of the parallel 
 ways ; and already many of the smaller mounds and en- 
 closures have entirely disappeared. Roads, railways, and a 
 canal, have successively invaded the sacred enclosures, and 
 wrought more changes in a single generation than had been 
 effected in all the previous interval since the discovery of 
 America. But the accompanying plan (Fig. 70), derived 
 from surveys executed while the chief earthworks could still 
 be traced in all their integrity, will enable the reader to 
 comprehend their character ; and if he clearly realises the 
 scale on which these geometrical figures are constructed, he 
 can be at no loss in recognising their essential difference 
 from the ephemeral earthworks which mark the sites of 
 Indian stockades or sepulchral mounds. While they pre- 
 sent certain analogies to mound-groups and enclosures both 
 of Europe and Asia, in many other respects they are totally 
 dissimilar : and illustrate rites and customs of an ancient 
 American people without a parallel among the monumental 
 memorials of the Old World. 
 
 
m 
 
 t ,, 
 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 J25 
 
 o 
 
 !■ 
 
 'ii 
 
 
 i. ; 
 
 :■'■ r, 
 
 
 •M' 
 
 
 
 i-- 
 
 
 Ijilt:' 
 
 III'-. 1'^ 
 

 ,1 
 
 Fill 
 
CHAP. X.] A STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT. 
 
 371 
 
 Several striking coincidences between the details of these 
 works and others of the same class are worthy of notice. 
 The diameter of the circle, the perfect form of which has 
 been noted, is nearly identical with two others forming 
 parts of remarkable groups in the Scioto valley, one of them 
 seventy miles distant. The square has also the same area 
 as a rectangular enclosure belonging to the "Hopeton 
 Works," where it is attached to a rirclj 1050 feet in dia- 
 meter, and to an avenue constructed between two parallel 
 embankments 2400 feet long, leading to the edge of a bank 
 immediately over the river-flat of the Scioto. A like coin- 
 cidence in the precise extent of the area enclosed has been 
 noticed in the octagon of a group, called the High Bank 
 Works, on the same river-terrace ; and in another, at the 
 junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers. The authors 
 of the elaborate surveys embodied in the Smithsonian 
 Contributions to Knowledge, remark generally that the 
 figures of the Scioto valley earthworks are not only accurate 
 squares and perfect circles, but are in most cases of corre- 
 sponding dimensions ; each square being 1.080 feet a side, 
 and the diameter of each of the larger and smaller circles a 
 fraction over 1700 and 800 feet. This they observe is " a 
 coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and 
 which must possess some significance. It certainly estab- 
 lishes the existence of some standard of measurement among 
 the ancient people, if not the possession ( " some means of 
 determining angles."^ It is no less import 't to note that 
 it establishes the use of instruments. A sti lard of mea- 
 surement could not otherwise exist, still less be applied, on 
 so large a scale in geometrical construction ; and the very 
 simplest instruments that we can conceive of, constitute no 
 less certain evidence of a condition of intellectual develop- 
 ment attained by this ancient people very diff'erent from 
 anything achieved by the most advanced Indian tribes. 
 Varied, moreover, as the combinations of their singular 
 
 ^ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 48. 
 
 h 
 
 If 
 
 
r 
 
 272 
 
 DIVERSITY OF WORKS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 groups of earthworks are, traces are clearly discarnible that 
 certain well-defined plans of construction, and a proportion- 
 ate scale of parts, guided their builders. Justly estimating 
 the importance of such coincidences, and the still greater 
 value of the evidence of the construction of geometric 
 figures on so large a scale, the authors of the surveys 
 have detailed their method of procedure, in order " to put 
 at once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise 
 as to the regularity of these works." This important point 
 rests accordingly on the most satisfactory evidence ;^ nor 
 are evtxx the imperfections observed in the construction of 
 some of the roctaup^ular figures without their significance, 
 as a test of the extent to which geometry had been mastered 
 by the ancient builders. 
 
 That this remarkable class of earthworks originated in 
 some totally different purpo3e from the strongholds already 
 described, is obvious. Their site is invariably on a level 
 plateau, and their avenues are connected with the neigh- 
 bouring flats by laboriously constructed approaches, as if to 
 facilitate the solemn march of processions. The embank- 
 ments are frequently slight ; where a ditch occurs it is 
 generally in the interior ; and their whole construction is in 
 striking contrast to the defensive enclosures in their vicinity. 
 At Newark they extend over the level terrace, and, with 
 outlying structures, embrace an area of several miles in 
 extent ; while on each side of the Valley, formed by the 
 Racoon Creek, military works occupy prominent elevations 
 presenting special natural advantages for defence. One of 
 those, obviously of a defensive character, encloses the sum- 
 mit of a high hill ; but it also contains a small circle with 
 tumuli, covering " altars " corresponding to those hereafter 
 described, wluch give their peculiar character to the sacred 
 mounds. There is no room, therefore, for doubt that the 
 various works referred to illustrate what may be styled the 
 civil, military, and ecclesiastical structures of the same 
 
 * Ancknt Monumerits 0/ (he Mmissijipi Valley, p. 57. 
 
|:'f 1 
 
 X.] 
 
 EVIDENCE OF SKILL, 
 
 273 
 
 people, including in the latter public games, such as among 
 many ancient nations constituted one special feature of their 
 religious festivals. 
 
 One important inference deducible from the peculiar fea- 
 tures of the works here referred to, is the state of knowledge 
 of their constructors. The most skilful engineer of our 
 own day would find it difficult, without the aid of instru- 
 ments, to lay down an accurate square on the scale of some 
 of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a mile 
 in circumference. Circles of moderate dimensions might 
 indeed be constructed, so long as it was possible to describe 
 them by a radius ; but with such works measuring five 
 thousand four hundred feet, or upwards of a mile in circum- 
 ference, the ancient geometrician must have had instru- 
 ments, and means of measuring arcs : for it seems impossible 
 to conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a 
 scale, otherwise than by finding the angle by its arc, from 
 station to station, through the whole course of their delinea- 
 tion. It is no less obvious from the correspondence in area 
 and relative proportions of so many of the regular en- 
 closures, that the Mound-Builders possessed a recognised 
 standard of measurement; and that some peculiar signi- 
 ficance, possibly of astronomical origin, was attached to 
 figures of certain forms and dimensions. 
 
 The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within 
 a fine basin of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its 
 older occupants the remarkable people now referred to. 
 But the grow th of the modern city has swept away every 
 vestige of their old earthworks ; and no definite record of 
 their details has been preserved. One memorial, however, 
 survives, which was discovered in 1841, when excavating 1 
 largo mound within the limits of the city. It has been the 
 subject of ingenious speculations ; and may have some bear- 
 ing on our present investigations. In the centre of the mound, 
 slightly below the level of the natural surface, a skeleton was 
 found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed 
 
 VOL. I. § 
 

 »■; 3 
 
 Sii;. 
 
 
 274 
 
 yw/c' cmcrNNATr tablet. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of tlie 
 elk, and the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying 
 illustration (Fig. 71). It is made of fire grained sandstone, 
 and measures five inches in length, ])y two and six-tenths 
 across the middle, and three inches at the ends. Upon its 
 smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sink- 
 ing the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to 
 produce what has been regarded l)y some as a hieroglyphic 
 inscription. But the most remarkable feature of its graven 
 device is the series of lines by which the plain surface at 
 each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will bo 
 observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The 
 
 Fid. 71. (JiiKMiumtl Tiibli't, 
 
 greater arc is divided by ii series of lines, twenty-seven in 
 number, into eijual spaces, and within this is another series 
 of seven oblique lines. The lesser arc at the o[)positc end 
 is divided in like manner by two series of twenty-five and 
 eight lines, similarly .'n-raiiged. This tablet has not failed 
 to receive due attention. It hns been noted that it bears 
 II "singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche." Its 
 series of lines were discovered to yield, in the sum of the 
 ])r()ducts of the longer and shorter ones, a near approxima- 
 tion to the number of days of the year. An astrono- 
 
x.| 
 
 SCALES OF MEASUREMENT. 
 
 ns 
 
 >) 
 
 mical n-igiii was accordingly assigned to it ; and it has been 
 surmised to l)c an ancient calendar, recording the approxi- 
 mation of the Mound -Builders to the true length of the 
 solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps runs to an opposite extreme 
 in suggesting that it is nothing more than a stamp, of which 
 s])ecimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico 
 and in the Mississippi mounds ; and which wcie probably 
 used in impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared 
 skins. Such clay stamps always betray their purjjose by 
 the handle attached to them, as in the corresponding bronze 
 stamps common on Roman sites ; whereas the Cincinnati 
 tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of 
 holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished 
 reverse grooves apparently made in shar})ening the tools by 
 which it was engraved, l^ut whatever theory be adoptcil 
 as to its original object or destinatlcm, the series of lines on 
 its two ends have justly attracted attention : for they con- 
 stitute no part of the device ; and can scarcely be regarded 
 as an ornamental border. Possil)ly in them wc have a 
 record of certain scales of measurement in use l)y the 
 Mound-Builders ; nnd if so, the discovery is calculated to 
 add fresh interest to our study of the geometrical structures, 
 which, far more than their great mounds, are the true 
 cliaracteristics of that mysterious people.^ 
 
 The precise objects aimed at in the construction of the 
 remarkal)le series of American earthworks here refen-ed to 
 must ol)viously be difficult to determine with certainty. 
 Analogies to these structures have been traced in the works 
 f Indian tribes formerly in occupation of Carolina and 
 Georgia. 'I'liey were attcustomed to erect a circular terrace 
 or platform on which their council-house stood. In front 
 of this, a ([uadranguhir area was enclosed with earthen 
 
 o 
 
 T:M^ 
 
 %l< 
 
 ' Tho WLxxlout is cngravwl from i\ rulil)iiig taken from tlio origimil. Mr. Whit- 
 UoHoy 1)08 inoludod this tiiltlct among IiIh " Archiuologioal Frauds ;" hut thn 
 result of inquiries made hy mo during a roccnf visit to Cincinnati has removed 
 from my mind any doubt of its genuinuness. 
 
276 
 
 TRACES OF EXTINCT RITES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 embankments, within which public games were played and 
 captives tortured. To this was sometimes added a square 
 or quadrangular terrace at the opposite end of the enclosure. 
 Upon the circular platform it is also affirmed that the 
 sacred fire was maintained by the Creek Indians, as part of 
 their most cherished rites as worshippers of the sun. But 
 even the evidence, thus far, is vague and unsatisfactory ; 
 and any recognisable analogies point, at best, only to the 
 possibility of some of the Indian tribes having perpetuated 
 on a greatly inferior scale some maimed rites borrowed 
 from their civilised precursors. The scale upon which the 
 Southern Indian earthworks were constructed may compare 
 with those of the Iroquois in the State of New York, but in 
 no degree approximates to the erections of the Mound- 
 Builders. What, for example, shall we make of che graded 
 ways, sujh as that of Piketon, Ohio, where au approach 
 has been laboriously formed from one terrace to another, 
 one thousand and eighty feet long by two hundred and 
 fifteen feet in greatest width ? The excavated earth has 
 ])een employed, in part, to construct lofty embankments on 
 each side of the ascent, which are now covered with trees of 
 large size. Beyond this approach, mounds and half-obliter- 
 ated earthworks indicate that it was only part of an ex- 
 tensive series of structures. But, viewed alone, it is one of 
 the most remarkable monuments of prehistoric times to be 
 found on the whole continent, and certainly bears not the 
 slightest resemblance, either in its character or the great 
 scale on which it is executed, to any known work of the 
 Red Indians. 
 
XL] 
 
 SOUR CES OF INFORM A TION. 
 
 277 
 
 ^::i^' 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS. 
 
 SOURCES OP INFORMATION— HILL MOUNDS— THE SCIOTO MOUND— THE TAYLOR MOUND 
 — THK ISSAQUINA MOUND— THE ELLIOT MOUND — THE. LOCKPORT MOUND— 
 BIACK bird's grave— SCIOTO VALLEY MOUNDS— SYMBOLICAL RITES— HUMAN 
 SACRIFICES— THE GRAVE CUEEK MOUND— COMMON SEPULCHRES— CREMATION — 
 SCIOTO MOUND CRANIUM— SACRED FESTIVALS. 
 
 When the significance of the military and sacred en- 
 closures of the Mound- Builders has been fully estimated as 
 memorials of a remarkable people belonging altogether to 
 prehistoric ages of the New World, their sepulchral mounds 
 acquire a new value. In the former we see unmistakable 
 indications of a settled condition of society greatly in 
 advance of anything attained by the Red Indian, and of 
 populous communities devoted to agriculture and other 
 industrial arts. From the latter we may hope to recover 
 some traits of ethnical character ; to find in the gifts to the 
 d'jad illustrations of their arts and customs ; and to catch 
 by means of their sepulchral rites some glimpses of the 
 nature of that belief which stimulated the Mound -Builders 
 to the laborious construction of -so many sacred earthworks.' 
 Their great mounds are for us not merely the sepulchres of 
 an ancient race ; they are the cemetery of nn early though 
 partial civilisation, irom whence we may derive illustrations 
 of the life, manners, and ideas of a people over whose 
 graves the forest had so long resumed its swny, that it 
 seemed to the Red Indians' supplantcrs to have been the 
 first occupant of the soil. ^ i 
 
 » Barrows, dunes, moat-hills, cairns, and earth or stono 
 
i?s ' Pi 
 
 " t M 
 
 II I 
 
 278 
 
 ///LL MOUNDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 mounds of various kinds, abound in many parts of the Old 
 as well as of the New World, and are nowhere more abun- 
 dant than in some districts of the British Isles. But 
 although corresponding primitive structures are met with 
 from tlie Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the Isthmus of 
 Panama, and beyond it, far into the southern continent : 
 nevertheless the works of the Mound -Builders have a 
 character of their own altogether peculiar; and though 
 numbered by thousands, they are limited to well-defined 
 areas, leaving a large portion of the continent, including 
 the whole of the Atlantic sea-board, without any traces of 
 their presence. The Mound-Builders were not a maritime 
 people. Their whole traffic w\as confined to the great 
 rivers, along the banks of which their ancient traces abound, 
 and to communication by long-obliterated overland routes 
 of travel. Notwithstanding the careful observations which 
 have been put on record relative to the mounds and earth- 
 works of " The West," much yet remains to be disclosed ; 
 for, happily, the excavation of such earth-pyramids is a 
 work greatly too laborious and costly to tempt those who 
 are influenced by mcx^e idle curiosity ; while their contents, 
 however valuable to the archooologist, off'er no such stimulus 
 to cupidity as, in Mexico and Peru, has led to the destruc- 
 tion of thousands of \he memorials of extinct arts and 
 customs. 
 
 As a general rule, the earth and stone works appear to 
 have been alike constructed of materials derived from the 
 immediate neighbourhood ; so that such differences do not, 
 in the majority of instances, supply any indication of 
 diversity in the enclosed deposits. A special character, 
 however, appears to i)ertain to one class, designated ** Hill 
 Mounds," from, the sites they occupy. Of these Mr. Squier 
 remarks: "The most elevated and commanding positions 
 are fre(|uently crowned with them, suggesting at once the 
 purposes to which. some of the mounds or cairns of the 
 ancient Celts were applied : that of signal or alarm posts. 
 
xr.] 
 
 THE SCIOTO MOUND. 
 
 279 
 
 [ 
 
 It is not unusual to find detached mounds among the hills 
 back from the valleys, and in secluded places, with no other 
 monuments near. The hunter often encounters them in the 
 depths of the forests when least expected : perhaps over- 
 looking some waterfall, or placed in some narrow valley 
 where the foot of man seldom enters." Similar structures 
 crown many western heights ; but some at least arc of 
 Indian origin ; and our knowledge of the characteristics 
 and contents of those of an earlier race must be greatly 
 extended, before we can assign the true and probably varied 
 objects aimed at in their erection. 
 
 But it is to the exploration of one of the smaller hill- 
 mounds that we owe the recovery of the most characteristic 
 illustration of the physical type of the ancient Mound- 
 Builders. The " Scioto Mound Cranium," described in a 
 later chapter, was obtained from a mound erected on the 
 summit of a commanding height overlooking the valley of 
 the Scioto, with its numerous earthworks. A conical knoll, 
 crowning the hill, rises with such regularity as almost to 
 induce the belief that it is artificial ; and on its apex stands 
 the tumulus overshadowed by the trees of the primitive 
 forest. Here under a covering of tough yellow clay, im- 
 pervious to moisture, a plate of mica rested on an inner 
 cairn, composed chiefly of large rough stones ; and within 
 this, a compacted bed of carbonaceous matter contained the 
 skull, with a few bones, and some shells of fresh water 
 molluscs, disposed irregularly round it. This, therefore, it 
 will be seen, confirms the idea that cremation played an 
 important part in the ancient sepulclir;d rites. 
 
 More recently Professor 0. C. Marsh explored the Taylor 
 Mouml, another of the hill-mounds, about two and a half 
 miles south of Newark. Apparently a cemetery had been 
 excavated on tlie summit of the ridge, within which lay the 
 remains of at least eiglit skeletons, chiefly of women and 
 children, all huddled together, and some of them showing 
 evidouco of long exposure. Along with those were found 
 
 "Ms 
 
 l-:r 
 
 ,u J 
 
prm**"'^ 
 
 280 
 
 THE TAYLOR MOUND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 W' 
 
 I \ 
 
 
 nine lance or arrow-heads of flint, six small axes, one of 
 them made of hematite, and the remainder of diorite or 
 compact green-stone, a small wedge or hatchet of hematite, 
 a flint chisel, a scraper, numerous implements of bone and 
 horn, including needles, a spatula or modeller's tool, and a 
 whistle made from the tooth of a black bear. Above this 
 ossuary a number of dead had been disposed : some of 
 them evidently interred with care, others as if slaughtered 
 and flung upon the heap of dead ; while a mass of incin- 
 erated human remains left no doubt on the minds of the 
 explorers that cremation had taken place directly over the 
 dead, and before the regular interment was completed. 
 Hence they were led to the conclusion that the funeral rites 
 had probably included a suttee sacrifice. 
 
 Directly under the apex of the mound upwards of one 
 hundred beads of native copper, intermingled with a few 
 shell beads, lay in contact with portions of the cervical 
 vertebrae of a young child, showing that they had been 
 worn as a necklace. The shell beads are about half an inch 
 long, and have been carefully polished. The copper beads 
 are only half this length, and wrought with the hammer 
 out of the native copper ; but with so much skill, that in 
 most of them it is difficult to detect the joining. Only two 
 of the skulls were sufficiently preserved to indicate their 
 true form. Both were small, and showed the vertical 
 occiput and large parietal diameter, supposed to pertain to 
 the Mound-Builders, but which are characteristic of many 
 American crania. 
 
 The contents of the two hill-mounds are thus seen to 
 differ widely ; and so far furnish no clew to any special 
 mode of burial or funeral ceremonies. But the interment 
 of a detached skull, as shown in the Scioto Mound, is no 
 solitary case. I was shown by Mr. L. M. Hosea, of Cincin- 
 nati, a large bowl-shaped vessel of steatite, capable of hold- 
 ing about two gallons, discovered by the blowing down of 
 a tree which stood on the summit of a mound on the 
 
XI.] 
 
 THE ISSAQUINA MOUND. 
 
 281 
 
 ^!i" 
 
 borders of Lincoln and Casey Counties, Kentucky. It had 
 been inverted over a human skull, beside which lay a num- 
 ber of shell-beads, and a quantity of mica. In the same 
 mound was a large conch-shell, hollowed out, and filled 
 with bone implements, including two large, well-finished 
 whistles, several deers' horn hammers, and about thirty 
 bone pins and awls. A perforated copper plate, and some 
 well -finished stone and flint implements, completed the 
 contents of the mound. Unfortunately the skull was too 
 much decayed to admit of preservation. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. W. Marshall Anderson for some 
 curious disclosures of the contents of another mound 
 recently opened by him at Issaquina, Mississippi. The 
 first remarkable discovery was the exposure of three 
 skeletons disposed vertically, as if they had been buried 
 with their heads above ground. On reaching the natural 
 level, a heap of ashes, with numerous fragments of bone, 
 showed where cremation had taken place. Over this were 
 three skeletons disposed at length, side by side, with a 
 drinking vessel and a wide-mouthed bowl of native pottery 
 close to the head of each. Numerous implements, including 
 tools of copper, well-finished celts of jasper and lignite, and 
 a grotesque clay-pipe representing a human head with dog's 
 ears, and a frog's mouth, lay alongside of them. But most 
 noticeable of all was the discovery of two inverted bowls in 
 the centre of the mound, underneath each of which lay a 
 human skull. One of them is described by Mr. Anderson 
 as " a beautiful skull, worthy of a Greek." But on being 
 exposed to the sun, as they dried, they crumbled to ashes, 
 " literally," as he says, " disintegrating before my eyes, 
 whilst I was busy gathering up copper and stone imple- 
 ments which would have waited for ever unharmed." 
 
 The only skeletons exposed in the Evans Mound, — a 
 large mound, near Newark, Ohio, at the opening of which I 
 was present, were in a similar condition of extreme decay. 
 Among the contents of the Taylor Mound, in the same 
 
 
282 
 
 THE ELLIOT MOUND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 : 
 
 locality, the curious fact was communicated to me, that the 
 fractured quarter of a nearly spherical mass of hematite 
 was found, which at the time attracted less notice than a 
 well-finished wedge and hatchet of the same material. 
 But on subsequently opening the Elliot and Wilson Mounds, 
 situated about five miles apart, in the same valley, each of 
 them was found to include among its contents a correspond- 
 ing fragment of hematite, which on being placed in juxta- 
 position, proved to be portions of the same broken sphere, 
 or nodule of hematite, valued in all probability for some 
 wonder-working power. Meteoric stones and pieces of 
 hematite have been repeatedly found in the Mounds ; and 
 were evidently objects of special regard. The Elliot 
 Mound furnished another object of interest, in a pipe 7i 
 inches long, neatly carved in gi'ey hmestone, with the bowl 
 finished in the form of a bear's head. As sliown in Fig. 72, 
 it is of an unusual style of design. 
 
 Fic. 72.— Stono Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio. 
 
 The establishment of the village of Lockport, on the 
 outskirts of Newark, and the more recent erection of 
 extensive ironworks there, have swept away a curious 
 group of mounds in that neighbourhood, including a 
 truncated pyramid, the contents of which appear to have 
 been of unusual interest. I examined in the collection 
 of Mr. Wm. L. Merrin, a solid copper armlet, a pair of 
 remarkable objects like double cymbals, a sheath subdivided 
 into thi3c tubes, supposed to be a quiver, a polished axe, 
 
XI.] 
 
 THE LOCKPORT MOUND. 
 
 and several perforated plates, all of copper ; a perforated 
 lead amulet, a polished chisel of diorite, numerous large 
 shell Leads, and large plates of mica cut into a horse-shoe 
 shape : all of which were found at the base of the Lockport 
 Mouml, along with a number of skeletons. Subsequently 
 other objects of interest, including a large, well-finished 
 stone maul, of oval shape, with a deep groove round its 
 centre, and a mass of pure lead weighing upwards of four 
 pounds, have been found on its site, in opening up a road. 
 But it is obvious that in this, as in so many other cases, we 
 have to regret the destruction of a valuable memorial of 
 the past, without any adequate record of its disclosures 
 being preserved. Happily a more intelligent interest has 
 now been awakened in the subject ; the rarer objects of 
 antiquity in stone and in metal are highly prized, and are 
 therefore likely to be preserved as marketable articles even 
 by those who can see in them no other value ; and as each 
 mound or earthwork discloses some novel feature, fur- 
 ther research may be expected to add materially to our 
 knowledge. 
 
 The remoter hill-mounds may reveal similar analogies 
 in structure or contents to those of the plains ; and so fur 
 nish evidence that the population which crowded the great 
 centres, was diffused in smaller numbers, far inland from 
 the river's banks, in outlying valleys and among the 
 secluded recesses of the hills. There, perhaps, as among 
 the higher valleys of the Andes under the rule of the 
 Incas, a pastoral people supplemented the agricultural 
 industry of the central provinces, and shared with them 
 the common rites and superstitions of the national religion. 
 
 In some cases the lofty site of the hill-mound may have 
 determined its selection from the same motive which occa- 
 sionally guides the modern Indian in his choice of a spot 
 for his grave. Of this a striking illustration is furnished 
 in the history of one modern tumulus on the Missouri. 
 Upwards of half a century has elapsed since Black iiird, a 
 
: 
 
 mi, 
 ■:1- 
 
 !?; 
 
 384 
 
 BLACK BIRUS GRAVE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 famous chief of the Omahaws, visited the city of Washing- 
 ton, and when returning was seized with small-pox, of which 
 he died on the way. When the chief found himself dying, 
 he called his warriors around him, and, like Jacob of old, 
 gave commands concerning his burial, which were as liter- 
 ally fulfilled. Dressed in his most sumptuous robes, and 
 fully equipped with his scalps and war-eagle's plumes, he 
 was borne about sixty miles below the Omahaw village, to 
 one of the loftiest bluflfs on the Missouri, which commands 
 a magnificent extent of river and landscape. His favourite 
 war-horse, a beautiful white steed, was led to the summit ; 
 and there, in presence of the whole nation, the dead chief 
 was placed on its back, looking towards the river, where, 
 as he had said, he could see the canoes of the white men as 
 they traversed the broad waters of the Missouri. His bow 
 was placed in his hand, his shield and quiver, with his pipe 
 and medicine-bag, were hung by his side. A store of 
 pemmican and a well-filled tobacco-pouch were supplied, to 
 sustain him on the long journey to the hunting-grounds of 
 the good Manitou, where the spirits of his fathers awaited 
 his coming. The medicine-men of the tribe performed their 
 most mystic charms to secure a happy passage to the land 
 of the great departed ; and all else being completed, each 
 warrior of the chiefs own band covered the palm of his 
 right hand with vermilion, and stamped its impress on the 
 white sides of the devoted war-steed. This done, the 
 Indians gathered turfs and soil, and placed them around its 
 feet and legs. Gradually the pile rose with the combined 
 labour of many willing hands, until the living steed and its 
 dead rider were buried together under the memorial mound; 
 and high over the crest of the lofty tumulus which covered 
 the warrior's eagle-plumes, a cedar post was reared to mark 
 more clearly to the voyagers on the Missouri, the last resting- 
 place of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahaws. 
 
 One of the most striking evidences of the extent of occu- 
 pation of the country, and the denseness of its ancient 
 
X..] 
 
 SCIOTO VALLEY MOUNDS. 
 
 28s 
 
 population, is furnished by a map in the Ancient Monu- 
 ments of the Mississippi Valley, showing a section of twelve 
 miles of the Scioto Valley. Square, circular, and polygonal 
 enclosures, single and in groups, parallels, ditches, and 
 mounds, occupy every available terrace along the banks of 
 the Scioto River, and its tributary Paint Creek. A group 
 of mounds in Ross county, Ohio, occupies the third terrace 
 on tl • east side of the Scioto Valley, nearly a hundred feet 
 above the river, and about equidistant from two remarkable 
 sacred enclosures. The principal mound is twenty-two feet 
 high ; and on penetrating to its centre the traces of a rude 
 sarcophagus of unhewn logs were indicated by the cast 
 which still remained in the compacted earth. The bottom 
 had been laid with matting or wood, the only remains of 
 which were a whitish stratum of decomposed vegetable 
 matter; and the timbers of the sarcophagus had in like 
 manner decayed, and allowed the superincumbent earth to 
 fall on the skeleton. Alongside of it were several hundred 
 beads, made of the columellse of marine shells and the 
 tusks of some animal, several of them bearing marks which 
 seemed to indicate that they were turned, instead of being 
 carved, or ground into shape by the hand. They retained 
 their position, forming a triple row, as originally strung 
 round the neck of the dead ; and, with the exception of a 
 few laminae of mica, were the only objects discovered in 
 the grave. A layer of charcoal, about ten feet square, lay 
 directly above the sarcophagus ; and seemed, from the 
 condition of the carbonised wood, to have been suddenly 
 quenched by heaping the earth over it while still blazing. 
 
 Similar layers of charcoal constitute a noticeable feature 
 in mounds of this class, and seem to indicate either that 
 sacrifices were performed over the bier, or that funeral rites 
 of some kind were celebrated, in which fire played an 
 important part. On these funeral pyres probably many 
 perishable articles were consumed ; as the beds of charcoal 
 are intermingled occasionally with fragments of bone, stone 
 
 
 
286 
 
 SYMBOLICAL RITES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 implements, ami other evidences of sacrifices and tribute to 
 the deceased. It is also apparent that the fire was kindled 
 and allowed, to blaze only for a limited time, when its 
 flames were quenched by heaping the earth over the glow- 
 ing embers ; so that while charcoal occurs beneath as well 
 as above the skeleton, the bones are unaffected by fire. 
 The rite was practised where cremation was not followed ; 
 and may have been symbolical of the lamp of life quenched 
 for ever in the grave. Implements, both of stone and 
 metal, have been found in these grave-mounds, but for the 
 most part their contents indicate a different condition of 
 society and mode of thought from what Indian sepulture 
 implies:. Weapons are of rare and exceptional occurrence. 
 The more common articles are personal ornaments, such as 
 bracelets, perforated plates of copper, beads of bone, shell, 
 or metal, and similar decorations worn on the body at the 
 time of its interment. Among the objects which appear to 
 have been purposely disposed around the dead, plates of 
 mica occur most frequently. In some cases the skeleton 
 has been found entirely covered with this material ; and in 
 others the laminae have been cut into regular figures : disks, 
 ovals, and symmetrical curves. As a general rule, how- 
 ever, it would appear that reverence for the dead was mani- 
 fested in other ways than by depositing costly gifts in the 
 grave ; nor do the relics found indicate any belief akin to 
 that which induces the modern Indian to lay beside his 
 buried chief the arms .and weapons of the chase, for use by 
 him in the future hunting-grounds or on the war-path. In 
 a few cases the simple sarcophagus has been constructed of 
 stone instead of wood ; in others the body appears to have 
 been merely wrapped in bark or matting. In some of the 
 Southern States both cremation and urn- burial seem to 
 liavebe'^n practised; but throughout the valleys of the Ohio 
 and its tributaries a nearly uniform system of sepulchral 
 rites has been traced. These no doubt bore some important 
 relation to the solemn religious observances indicated by 
 
X..] 
 
 HUMAN SACRfFICES. 
 
 287 
 
 other works of the same people ; and as it is not in tlie 
 sepulchral mounds, but in those which cover the *' altars " 
 on which the sacrificial fires of the ancient worshippers 
 appear to have often blazed, that the greater number of 
 their works of art, and even their implements and weapons 
 have been found : it may be that there, rather than at the 
 grave-mounds, they propitiated the manes of the dead, and 
 sought by sacrifices of love and reverence to reach beyond 
 this world to one unseen. Other indications, however, 
 present analogies to the arrangements of cists and cinerary 
 urns in ancient British tumuli, which suggest no less clearly 
 the probability of human sacrifices, and a suttee self-immo- 
 lation at the grave of the great chief, so congenial to the 
 ideas of barbaric rank. Such cruel rites we know were 
 practised among the Mexicans and Peruvians on the largest 
 scale ; wives, concubines, and attendants being immolated 
 by the latter on the tomb of their deceased Inca, in some 
 cases even to the number of thousands. 
 
 The Grave Creek Mound, at the junction of Grave Creek 
 with the Ohio river, in the State of Virginia, commands, 
 on various accounts, a prominent distinction among the 
 sepulchral monuments of America. It occupies a site on an 
 extensive plain in connection with works now much oblit- 
 erated ; but its own gigantic proportions bid effectual 
 defiance to the operations which are lapidly erasing less 
 salient records of the ancient occupants of the soil. In the 
 year 1838, when various circumstances combined to direct 
 an unusual degree of attention to American antiquities, 
 Mr. Tomlinson, the pro})rietor of the land, had it explored 
 at considerable cost. A shaft sunk from the top, and a 
 tunnel carried to the centre, disclosed two sepulchnd cham- 
 l)ers, one at the base, and another thirty feet above. They 
 had been constructed, as in other cases, of logs, which 
 had decayed, and permitted the superincumbent earth, 
 with stones placed immediately over them, to fjdl upon the 
 skeletons. In the upper chamber a single skeleton was 
 
288 
 
 THE GRA VE CREEK MOUND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 found in an advanced :ate of decay, whilst the lower one 
 contained two skeletons, one of which was believed to be 
 that of a female. Beside these lay between three and four 
 thousand shell-beads, a number of ornaments of mica, 
 several bracelets of copper, and sundry relics of stone carv- 
 ing, referred to, along with works of art from other ancient 
 mounds, in a future chapter. But among them was in- 
 cluded an inscribed stone disc, which constitutes one of the 
 marvels of American antiquities. On reaching the lower 
 vault, after removing its contents, it wa? determined to 
 enlarge it into a convenient chamber for isitors, and in 
 doing so ten more skeletons were discovered, all in a sitting 
 posture, but in too fragile a state to admit of preservation. 
 The position of these immediately around the sepulchral 
 chamber, in the very centre of the mound, precludes all 
 idea of subsequent interment, and scarcely admits of any 
 other mode of accounting for their presence than that which 
 the human sacrifices both of ancient and modern American 
 obsequies suggest. 
 
 A tumulus of the gigantic proportions of the Grave Creek 
 Mound serves emphatically to impress the mind with the 
 conviction that such structures, even when of smaller 
 dimensions, were no accompaniments of common sepulture, 
 but the special memorials of distinguished chiefs ; or, it 
 may be, at times, of venerated priests. Of the busy popu- 
 lation that once thronged the valleys of the West we have 
 no other memorials than those which commemorate the toil 
 of many to give a deathless name to one now as nameless 
 as themselves. The investigators of their works, after de- 
 scribing in detail the monumental mounds, remark : " The 
 graves of the great mass of the ancient people who thronged 
 our valleys, and the silent monuments of whose toil are 
 seen on every hand, were not thus signalised. We scarcely 
 know where to find them. Every day the plough uncovers 
 crumbling remains, but they elicit no remark ; are passed 
 by, and forgotten. The wasting banks of our rivers occasion- 
 
XL] 
 
 COMMON SEPULCHRES. 
 
 289 
 
 ally display extensive cemeteries ; biit sufficient attention 
 has never been bestowed upon them to enable us to speak 
 with any degree of certainty of their date, or to distinguish 
 whether they belonged to the Mound- Builders or a sub- 
 sequent race. These cemeteries are often of such extent 
 as to give a name to the locality in which they occur. Thus 
 we hear, on the Wabash, of the ' Big Bone Bank ' and the 
 Little Bone Bank,' from which, it is represented, the river 
 annually washes many human skeletons, accompanied by 
 numerous and singular remains of art, among which arc 
 more particularly mentioned vases and other vessels of 
 pottery, of remarkable and often fantastic form."* I have 
 been fortunate enough to obtain an interesting example of 
 the latter class of pottery, from Big Bone Bank, figured on 
 a subsequent page, which is specially valuable from the 
 striking analogy it suggests to familiar forms of Peruvian 
 pottery. 
 
 The Ohio and Erie canal traverses the river-terrace of the 
 Scioto Valley in the vicinity of Chillicothe, where the ancient 
 works of the Mound-Builders are more abundant than in any 
 other area of equal limits hitherto explored. In some cases the 
 canal has been cut through them, and it can scarcely admit 
 of doubt that many interesting traces of the arts and habits 
 of the remarkable people who once filled the long-deserted 
 scene, mu^t have been disclosed to heedless eyes. Here and 
 there, doubtless, a stray relic was picked up, wondered at, 
 and forgotten ; but nu note was taken of the circumstances 
 under which it was found, and no record made of the dis- 
 covery. And so must it ever be. The pioneers of civili- 
 sation in the uncleared wilds of the West are too entirely 
 preoccupied with the present, to spare a thought for long 
 forgotten centuries. Happily, however, this state of things 
 is passing away, and every year shows increasing evidence 
 of intelligent zeal in the recovery and preservation of wluit- 
 
 ^ Ancient Monumenti qf tJie Misaiasippi Valley, p. 171. 
 VOL. I. T 
 
290 
 
 CREMATION. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ^~ 
 
 ever is calculated to throw light on the prehistoric ages of 
 America. 
 
 The contents of the Scioto Valley Mound, as well as 
 of others described above, prove that the human remains 
 were deposited in them long after the body had gone to 
 decay ; and while numerous indications serve to show that 
 cremation was extensively practised by the Mound-Builders, 
 it is not improbable that a custom may have prevailed 
 analogous to the modern Indians' scaffolding and subsequent 
 sepulture of the bones of their dead. The remains thus 
 periodically gathered were sometimes deposited in a com- 
 mon ossuary, as in that of the Taylor Mound; and in 
 other cases were burnt, with fitting rites, and their ashes 
 heaped together, forming mounds, such as one opened on 
 the bank of Walnut Creek, in the Scioto Valley. The prin- 
 cipal portion of this consisted seemingly of long-exposed 
 and highly-compacted ashes, intermingled with specks 
 of charcoal, and small bits of burned bones. Beneath this 
 was a small mound of very pure white clay, resting on the 
 original soil, without any traces of the action of fire, over 
 which the incinerated remains had been piled into a mound, 
 nine feet in height by forty in base. The customs of the 
 North American Indians, however, were very diverse ; and 
 among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians inhumation, 
 cremation, urn-burial, and mummification, accompanied 
 with deposition in artificial vaults and in caves, were all 
 practised. It need not therefore surprise us to find excep- 
 tions among the ancient Mound-Builders to any practice 
 recognised as most prevalent among them. Considering the 
 decayed state of most of the bones recovered from the great 
 sepulchral mounds, where they were equally protected from 
 external air and moisture : if the common dead were in- 
 humed under the ordinary little grave-mound, their bones 
 roust, for the most part, have long since returned to dust. 
 Nor must it be overlooked that the extremely comminuted 
 state to which most of the skeletons in the larger mounds 
 
[chap. 
 Lges of 
 
 veil as 
 emains 
 rone to 
 )W that 
 ;uilders, 
 cevailed 
 sequent 
 ns thus 
 a com- 
 and in 
 ir ashes 
 (cned on 
 ]he prin- 
 ;-exposed 
 ti specks 
 eath this 
 ig on the 
 fire, over 
 a mound, 
 IS of the 
 ;rse; and 
 lumation, 
 ompanied 
 , were all 
 od excep- 
 T practice 
 lering the 
 the great 
 icted from 
 were in- 
 leir bones 
 I to dust, 
 minuted 
 r mounds 
 
 XI.] 
 
 SCIOTO MOUND CRANIUM. 
 
 291 
 
 have been reduced, when brought to light by modern ex- 
 plorers, is due, in part at least, to the falling in of a super- 
 incumbent mass of earth and stones upon them, when the 
 timber ceiKng of their sarcophagus had sustained the weight 
 long enough only to render them the less able to resist its 
 crushing force. The perfect preservation of the "Scioto 
 Mound cranium " was due to its being imbedded in char- 
 coal, over which a superstructure of large stones enveloped 
 with tough yellow clay had been piled, without any 
 treacherous timber vaults. It lay in the centre of the car- 
 bonaceous deposit, resting on its face. The lower jaw was 
 wanting, and only the clavicle, a few cervical vertebrae, and 
 some of the bones of the feet were huddled around it. 
 Unaccompanied though it was by any relics of art, it is, in 
 itself, one of the most valuable objects hitherto recovered 
 from the American mounds. 
 
 Such are some of the traces we are able to recover of 
 the sepulchral rites of this people. In discussing the con- 
 clusions suggested alike by their disclosures, and by those 
 which the sacrificial mounds, the sacred circumvallations, 
 and the buried works of art reveal, we are dealing with 
 characteristics of a race pertaining to periods long preceding 
 any written history. For us these are their sole chronicles ; 
 and yet, even from such data, we are able to deduce some 
 traits of moral and intellectual character. Perhaps the most 
 important fact for our present purpose is the rarity of 
 weapons of war among the sepulchral deposits. It accords 
 with other indications of the condition of the Mound- 
 Builders. They had passed be^' jnd that rude stage of 
 savage life in which war and the chase are the only honour- 
 able occupations of man. Their weapons of war, like their 
 fortresses, were means for the defence of acquisitions they 
 had learned to prize more highly. They had conquered the 
 forests, and displaced the spoils of the hunter with the 
 wealth of autumn's harvestings; and with the h ' 'ts of a 
 settled agricultural people, many new ideas had takcki the 
 
 n 
 
 
 li m 
 
 !;: 'i 
 
w 
 
 292 
 
 SACRED FESTIVALS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 place of the wild imaginings and superstitions of the savage. 
 As among all agricultural nations, the vernal and autumnal 
 seasons doubtless had their appropriate festivals; and we 
 can still, in imagination, reanimate their sacred enclosures 
 and avenues with the joyous procession bearing its thank- 
 offering of first-fruits, or laden with the last golden treasures 
 of the harvest-home. 
 
XII.] 
 
 MOUl^D ALTARS. 
 
 293 
 
 ^:S.I 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS. 
 
 MOUND ALTARS— ALTAB OEFOSITS— QUENCHINQ THE ALTAR FIRES— MOUIO) HEARTHS 
 —MOUND CITY— MIUTARY ALTAR MOUNDS— THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS 
 —SIGNIFICANCE OP THEIR DEPOSITS— ANALOGOUS INDIAN BITES— TRANSI- 
 TIONAL CIVDJSATION. 
 
 The name of sacrificial mounds has been conferred on a 
 class of monuments peculiar to the New World, and highly 
 illustrative of the rites and customs of the ancient race of 
 the mounds. From their contents also we derive many of 
 the most interesting examples of the arts of that singular 
 people. The most noticeable characteristics of the sacrifi- 
 cial mounds are : their almost invariable occurrence within 
 enclosures ; their regular construction in uniform layers 
 of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata 
 conformable to the shape of the mound ; and their covering 
 a symmetrical hearth or altar of burnt clay or stone, on 
 which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances exhi- 
 biting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been 
 exposed to the action of fire. 
 
 , A sufficient number of sacrificial mounds has been opened 
 to justify the adoption of certain general conclusions rela- 
 tive to their construction and the purposes for which they 
 were designed. On the natural surface of the ground, in 
 most cases, a basin of fine clay appears to have been 
 modelled with care, in a perfectly symmetrical form, but 
 
 M \ 
 
nca 
 
 294 
 
 ALTAR DEPOSITS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 varying in shape, and still more in dimensions. They have 
 been found square, round, elliptical, and in the form of 
 parallelograms ; and, in size, range from a diameter of two 
 feet, to fifty or sixty feet long, and twelve or fifteen feet 
 wide. The most common dimensions, however, are from 
 five to eight feet in diameter. The clay basin, or " altar," 
 as it has been designated, invariably exhibits traces of 
 having been, subjected to the action of fire, and frequently 
 of intense and long-continued or oft-repeated heat. It is, 
 moreover, evident that in some cases it had not only been 
 often used ; but, after being destroyed by repeated expos- 
 ures to intense heat, it had been several times remodelled 
 before it was finally covered over by the superincumbent 
 mound. 
 
 Within the focus or basin of the altars are found numer- 
 ous relics : elaborate carvings in stone, ornaments cut in 
 mica, copper implements, disks, and tubes, pearl, shell, and 
 silver beads, and various other objects, hereafter referred 
 to, but 0,11 more or less injured by fire. In some cases the 
 carved pipes and other works in stone have been split and 
 calcined by the heat, and the copper relics have been melted, 
 so that the metal lies fused in shapeless masses in the centre 
 of the basin. Traces of cloth completely carbonised, but 
 still retaining the structure of the doubled and twisted 
 thread ; ivory or bone needles, and other objects destruc- 
 tible by fire, have also been observed ; and the whole are 
 invariably found intermixed with a quantity of ashes. 
 Large accumulations of calcined bones, including fragments 
 of human bones, also lay above some of the deposits, or 
 mingled with them ; and in other cases a mass of calcined 
 shells, or of fine carbonaceous dust, like that formed by the 
 burning of vegetable matter, filled up the entire hollow. 
 But while it is obvious from a few traces, that the deposits 
 on the altars had included ofierings of objects which yielded 
 at once to the destructive element to which they were there 
 exposed, as well as others capable in some degree of with- 
 
XII.] 
 
 QUENCHING THE ALTAR FIRES. 
 
 295 
 
 standing the intensity of the flame : there are only faint 
 traces of all but the least destructible relics of stone or 
 metal. In one mound portions of the contents were 
 cemented together by a tufa-like substance of a grey colour, 
 resembling the scoriae of a furnace, and of great hardness. 
 But subsequent analyses demonstrated that it was made up 
 in part of phosphates ; and a single fragment of partially 
 calcined bone found on the altar was the patella of a human 
 skeleton. The long-continued, and probably oft-repeated 
 application of intense heat had reduced the cemented mass 
 to this condition. A quantity of pottery, many implements 
 of copper, and a large number of spear-heads chipped out 
 of quartz and manganese garnet, were also deposited on the 
 hearth ; but they were intermixed with much coal and ashes, 
 and were all more or less melted or broken up with the 
 intense action of the fire. Out of a bushel or two of frag- 
 ments of the spear-heads, and of from fifty to a hundred 
 quartz arrow-heads, only four specimens were recovered 
 entire. Scattered over the deposits of earth filling one of 
 the compartments, were traces of a number of pieces of 
 timber, four or five feet long, supposed by the explorers to 
 have supported a funeral or sacrificial pile. They had been 
 somewhat burned, and the carbonised surface preserved 
 their casts in the hard earth, although the wood had entirely 
 decayed. They had been heaped over while glowing, for 
 the earth around them was slightly baked ; and thus, after 
 repeated, and perhaps long-protracted sacrificial rites, some 
 grand final service had consummated the religious mys- 
 teries ; and the blazing altar was quenched by means of the 
 tumulus that was to preserve it for the instruction of future 
 
 ages. ^ :___—.- 
 
 The evidence that some of the altars remained in use for 
 a considerable period, and were repeatedly renewed ere 
 they were finally covered over, has suggested the idea that 
 they are no more than the hearths of the ancient Mound- 
 Builders' dwellings. But in some cases a single altar-hearth 
 
 Ji 
 
 i 
 
 
296 
 
 MOUND HEARTHS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 has been found within extensive circumvallations. When 
 in groups their enclosures aie slight demarcations, as of 
 places sacred to religious observances, and not defensive 
 embankments with outer ditch. Their contents cannot 
 be regarded as mere miscellaneous deposits, either like the 
 waste heap of an Indian hut, or the contents of the modern 
 Indian's ossuary ; and it is obvious that those hearths have 
 been systematically overlaid with mounds constructed with 
 great care, even where they were devoid of other traces 
 than the ashes of their final fires. In one large mound, for 
 example, one hundred and forty feet in length, by sixty feet 
 in greatest breadth, — already referred to as that in which so 
 many quartz spear and arrow heads, with copper and other 
 relics, were found ; — a new and smaller hearth was observed 
 to have been constructed within the oblong basin of the 
 original altar. In this all the relics deposited in the mound 
 were placed, and the outer compartments of the large basin 
 had been filled up with earth to a uniform level, the surface 
 of which showed traces of fire. A more minute examina- 
 tion led to the discovery that three successive altars had 
 been constructed, one above another, in addition to the 
 smaller hearth or focus which had received the final offer- 
 ings, ere it was buried under its enclosing mound. In other 
 examples the altars have been observed to be very slightly 
 burned ; but wherever such was the case, they have also 
 been destitute of remains. 
 
 Along with the evidences of a uniformity of system t:nd 
 purpose in those structures, there is also considerable 
 variety in some of their details ; and one group may be 
 selected, as on several accounts possessing peculiar features 
 of interest. On the western bank of the Scioto, an ancient 
 enclosure occupies a level terrace immediately above the 
 river. In outline it is nearly square with rounded angles, 
 and consists of a simple embaiiment, between three and 
 four feet high, unaccompanied by a ditch, or any other 
 feature suggestive of its having been a place of defence. 
 
XII.] 
 
 MOUND CITY. 
 
 297 
 
 It encloses an area of thirteen acres, within which are 
 twenty-four mounds, including the large oblong one already 
 referred to. The whole of these have been excavated, and 
 found to contain altars and other remains, suggestive of 
 places of sacrifice, and not of sepulture. Here, therefore, it 
 may be assumed, was one of the sacred enclosures of the 
 Mound-Builders. The name of " Mound City " has been 
 given to it ; and the results of its exploration prove it to 
 have been one of the most remarkable scenes of ancient 
 ceremonial in the Scioto Valley. It would almost seem as 
 if here an altar had been reared to each god in the Ameri- 
 can pantheon ; for not the least remarkable feature observed 
 in reference to this class of mounds is, that they do not 
 disclose a miscellaneous assemblage of relics, like the 
 Indian's ossuary or grave-mound. On the contrary, the 
 sacrificial deposits are generally nearly homogeneous. On 
 one altar sculptured pipes are chiefly found, to the number 
 of hundreds ; on another pottery, copper ornaments, stone 
 implements, or galena ; on others, only an accumulation of 
 calcined shells, carbonaceous ashes, or burnt bones. One 
 mound of this enclosure covered a hearth in the form of a 
 parallelogram of the utmost regularity, measuring ten feet 
 in length, by eight in width, and containing a deposit of 
 fine ashes, with fragments of pottery, from which the pieces 
 of one beautiful vase were recovered and restored. With 
 these also lay a few shell and pearl beads. In another 
 oblong mound, the altar was an equally perfect square, but 
 with a circular basin, remarkable for its depth, and filled 
 with a mass of calcined shells. Another, though of small 
 dimensions, contained nearly two hundred pipes, carved 
 with ingenious skill, of a red porphyritic stone, into figures 
 of animals, birds, reptiles, and human heads. In addition 
 to these were also disks, tubes, and ornaments of copper, 
 pearl and shell beads, etc., but aU more or less injured by the 
 heat, which had been sufficiently intense to melt some of 
 the copper relics. The number of the objects found in this 
 
 
 m\ 
 
298 
 
 MILITARY ALTAR MOUNDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Mi, ■ 'i 
 IP- 
 
 
 mound exceed any othor single deposit. Some of them 
 supply illustrations of great importance relative to the arts, 
 habits, and probable origin of their makers ; and that they 
 were objects of value purposely exposed to the destructive 
 element can scarcely admit of doubt. A like diversity 
 marks the contents of other mounds, both within the enclos- 
 ure referred to, and in others where careful explorations 
 have been effected. From one, for example, upwards of 
 six hundred disks of homstone were taken, and it was 
 estimated that the entire deposit numbered little short of 
 four thousand. 
 
 It thus appears that sacrifices by fire were practised as an 
 important and oft-repeated part of the sacred rites of the 
 Mound-Builders ; and also that certain specific and varying 
 purposes were aimed at in the offerings. The altar-mounds 
 are chiefly found within what appear to have been enclos- 
 ures devoted primarily, if not exclusively, to religious pur- 
 poses; but they also occur, generally as single works, 
 within the military strongholds : where it may be assumed 
 they sufficed for sacrifices designed to propitiate the objects 
 of national worship, and to win the favour of their deities, 
 when the garrisons were precluded from access to the 
 sacred enclosures where national religious rites were chiefly 
 celebrated. 
 
 Within a quarter of a mile of " Mound City " a work of 
 somewhat similar outline, but of larger dimensions, suggests 
 the i<5ea of a fortified site : not designed as a military 
 stronghold, but as a walled town, wherein those who offici- 
 ated at the sacrifices of the adjacent temple may have 
 resided. Unlike the slight enclosure of the latter, its walls are 
 guarded by an outer fosse ; and if surmounted by a palisade, 
 or other military work, they were well suited for defence. The 
 area thus enclosed measures twency-eight acres ; and nearly, 
 if not exactly, in the centre is a sacred mound, which covered 
 an altar of singular construction, and with remarkable traces 
 of sacrificial rites. It had undergone repeated changes 
 
XII.] 
 
 THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS. 
 
 299 
 
 before its final inhumation. Upon the ftA'-ar was found an 
 accumulation of burnt remains, carefully covered with a 
 layer of sand, above which was heaped the superstructure 
 of the mound. " The deposit consisted of a thin layer of 
 carbonaceous matter, intermingled with which were some 
 burnt human bones, but so much calcined as to render 
 recognition extremely difficult. Ten well- wrought copper 
 bracelets were also fcand, placed in two heaps, five in each, 
 and encircling some calcined bones, — probably those of the 
 arms upon which they were worn. Besides these .v^re 
 found a couple of thick plates of mica, placed upon :Le 
 western slope of the altar."^ 
 
 All investigations coincide in proving that the altars of 
 the Mound-Builders were used for considerable periods, and 
 that their final incovering was effected with systematic 
 care. In this respect they present a striking contrast to 
 the sepulchral mounds of the Indians, the largest and most 
 imposing of which are no more than huge grave-mounds, or 
 earth -pyramids, sometimes elliptical or pear-shaped, but 
 exhibiting in their internal structure no trace of any further 
 design than to heap over the sarcophagus of the honoured 
 chief such a tumulus as should preserve his name and fame 
 to after times. 
 
 The investigation of this class of ancient works suggests 
 many curious questions to which it is difficult to furnish 
 any satisfactory answer. It seems probable that not only 
 each successive stage in the use and reconstruction of the 
 altar, but in the building of the superincumbent mound, 
 had its own significance and accompanying rites. In one 
 of the ** Mound City" structures, after penetrating through 
 four successive sand-strata, interposed at intervals of little 
 more than a foot between layers of earth ; and excavating 
 altogether to a depth of nineteen feet : a smooth level floor 
 of slightly burned clay was found, covered with a thin 
 layer of sand, and on this a series of round plates of mica, 
 
 * Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 157. 
 
 i|^ 
 
 ^i; 
 
"1 
 ■ 'a 
 
 ■a 
 
 > Hi 
 
 •J 
 
 iv 
 
 : ^li 
 
 t- 
 
 ii 
 
 w^ 
 
 300 
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THEIR DEPOSITS. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 ten inches or a foot in diameter, were regulaily disposed, 
 overlapping each other like the scales of a fish. The whole 
 deposit was not uncovered, but sufficient was exposed to 
 lead the observers to the conclusion that the entire layer of 
 mica was arranged in the form of a crescent, the full dimen- 
 sions of which must measure twenty feet from horn to horn, 
 and five feet at its greatest breadth. In some mounds the 
 accumulated carbonaceous matter, like that formed by the 
 ashes of leaves or grass, might suggest the graceful oflPerings 
 of the first-fruits of the earth. In others, the accumulation 
 of hundreds of elaborately carved stone pipes on a single 
 altar, is suggestive of some ancient peace or war pipe cere- 
 monial, in which the peculiar American custom of tobacco- 
 smoking had its special significance, and even perhaps its 
 origin. In others again, we should perhaps trace in the 
 deposition under the sacred mound of hundreds of spear 
 and arrow heads, copper axes, and other weapons of war, a 
 ceremonial perpetuated in the rude Indian symbolism of 
 burying the tomahawk or war-hatchet. But looking to the 
 evidence which so clearly separates the sepulchral from the 
 sacred mounds, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion 
 that on some of the altars of the Mound-Builders human 
 sacrifices were made ; and that within their sabred en- 
 closures were practised rites 'lot less hideous than those 
 which characterised the worship which the ferocious Aztecs 
 arc affirmed to have regarded as most acceptuble to their 
 sanguinary gods. Among the Mexicans, if we are to 
 believe the narratives of their Spanish conqucrora, human 
 sacrifices constituted the crowning rite of almost evp^y 
 festival. That great exaggeration is traceable in the narra- 
 tives of the chronicles is admitted in p: rt even by the 
 enthusiastic historian of the conquest of Mexico ; and the 
 charming historical romance woven by Prescott, is perhaps 
 even more open to question in its reproduction of the gross 
 charges of cannibalism and wholesale butchery in the super- 
 stitious rites of the Mexicans : than in its gorgeous pictur- 
 
XII.] 
 
 ANALOGOUS INDIAN RITES. 
 
 ■^ 
 
 ■r S 
 
 QYPry 
 
 narra- 
 the 
 dtho 
 rhaps 
 gross 
 mpor- 
 ictur- 
 
 ings of their architectural magnificence, their temples and 
 palaces, sculptured fountains, floating gardens, and all the 
 strange blending of Moorish luxury, with the refinements 
 of European life, and its unreserved freedom of women. 
 
 Nothing corresponding to the geometrical enclosures or 
 altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley appears among the 
 Torks of any Indian nation known to Europeans. Never- 
 theless in searching for evidence of their ethnical affinities, 
 we are naturally led to inquire if no traces of their peculiar 
 rites and customs can be detected in the ruder practices 
 of savage nations found in occupation of their deserted 
 sites ; and some of those in use by different Indian tribes 
 undoubtedly suggest ideas such as may have animated the 
 ancient people of the valley in the construction and use of 
 their mounds of sacrifice. One class of mound relics, for 
 example, is thus illustrated in Harlot's narrative of the dis- 
 covery of Virginia in 1 584. He describes the use of tobacco, 
 called by the natives uppdwoc, and greatly enlarges on its 
 medicinal virtues. He then adds : " This uppdivoc is of so 
 precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods 
 are marvellously delighted therewith, whereupon sometime 
 they make hallowed fires, and cast some of the powder 
 therein for a sacrifice." The discovery of unmistakable 
 evidence that one of the sacred altars of "Mound City" 
 was specially devoted to nicotian rites and offerings, renders 
 such allusions peculiarly significant. In the belief of the 
 ancient worshippers, the Great Spirit smelled a sweet savour 
 in the smoke of the sacred plant ; and the homely imple- 
 ment of modem luxury became in their hands a sacred 
 censer, from which the vapour rose with as fitting propitia- 
 tory odours as that which perfumes the awful precincts of 
 the cathedral altar, amid the mysteries of the Church's high 
 and holy days. --7-~"T"n"^^"'"?~T7~— ■'" •' ..,.::', .■-'••w:i: 
 
 It is indeed a vague and partial glimpse that wo recover 
 of the old worshipper, with his strange rites, his buried arts, 
 and cho traces of his propitiatory sacrifices. But slight as 
 
 'II' >i ' 
 
wmmm 
 
 302 
 
 TRANSITIONAL CIVILISATION 
 
 [chap. 
 
 it is, it reveals a condition of things diverse in many 
 respects from all else that we know of the former history 
 of the New World ; and on that account, therefore, its most 
 imperfect disclosures have an interest for us greater than 
 any discoveries relating to the modern Indian can possess. 
 Still more is that interest confirmed by every indication 
 which seems to present the ancient Mound-Builders as in 
 some respects a link between the rude tribes of the Ameri- 
 can forests and prairies, and those nations whom the first 
 Europeans found established in cities, under a well-ordered 
 government, and surrounded by many appliances of civilisa- 
 tion akin to those with which they had been long familiar 
 among ancient nations of southern Asia. To the great 
 centres of native progress still manifest in the ruined 
 memorials of extinct arts in Centra- America, and illus- 
 trated by so many evidences of iiaiional development 
 attained under Aztec and Inca rule, attention must be 
 directed with a view to comprehend whatever was essen- 
 tially native to the New World. But before turning south- 
 ward to those seats of a well-ascertained native civilisation, 
 there still remains for consideration one other class of earth- 
 works of a very peculiar character. The mineral regions 
 from whence the Mound-Builders derived their stores of 
 copper have been described ; but between them and the 
 populous valleys of the Ohio, an extensive logion inter- 
 venes, abounding in monuments no less i :'r-':able than 
 some of those already referred to ; and valuai iS* a possible 
 link in the detached fragments of such ancient v>.^roniclings. 
 Lying as they do in geographical, and perhaps also in other 
 relations, immediately between the old regions of the 
 Mound-Builders and the Miners of ante-Columbian cen- 
 turies, they cannot be overlooked in any archaeological 
 researches into the history of the New World. 
 
 ■,l ; l«t. 
 
XIII.] 
 
 THE WISCONSIN REGION, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 
 SYMBOLIC MOUNDS. 
 
 TIIF WISCONSIN HEGION— ANIMAL MOUNDS— SYMBOLIC MOUNDS— BIO ELEPHANT 
 MOUND— DADE COUNTY MOUNDS— MAGNITUDE OF EARTHWORKS— ENCL0SJJ3 
 WORKS OP ART— ROOK RIVER WORKS — THE NORTHERN AZTALAN— ANCIENT 
 GARDEN BEDS— THE WISCONSIN PLAINS— A SACRED NEUTRAL LAND— THE 
 ALLIGATOR MOUND— THE GREAT SERPENT, OHIO — SERPENT SYMBOLS— INTAGLIO 
 EARTHWORKS— SUGGESTIVE INFERENCES— THE ANCIENT RACE— A SACERDOTAL 
 CASTE— ANTIQUITY OF THE RACE —INFERIORITY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. 
 
 The well-watered region which stretches westward from 
 Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, was occupied until 
 recently by a comparatively dense Indian population ; and 
 even now aflfords shelter to the remnants of native tribes. 
 But besides the traces of their ephemeral dwellings and 
 graves, it abounds with earthworks of a distinctive charac- 
 ter, peculiar to the New World. But of this as of other 
 partially explored regions of the west, the earlier accounts 
 were vague and contradictory ; and it is only very recently 
 that the characteristics of its monuments have been accur- 
 ately defined. Mr. J, A. Lapham, to whose Antiquities of 
 Wisconsin surveyed and described, the minute knowledge 
 of these remarkable earthworks is chiefly due, claims to 
 have first described the Turtle Mound at Waukesha and 
 other animal eflfigies of the same territory, so early as 1836. 
 These notices, however, only appeared in local newspapers ; 
 and general attention was for the first time directed to 
 them by Mr. R. C. Taylor in the American Journal of 
 Arts and Sciences, in 1838. Their peculiar character was 
 thereby perceived, and such general interest awakened, that 
 the American Antiquarian Society was induced to place 
 
 - a 
 
304 
 
 ANIMAL MOUNDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 '"M 
 
 sp-i-r 
 
 
 
 funds at Mr. Lapham's disposal for carrying out the 
 elaborate surveys since published. 
 
 The occurrence of "Animal Mounds" is by no means 
 exclusively confined to the State of Wisconsin. Some 
 examples are specially worthy of notice among the varied 
 earthworks of the Ohio and Scioto Valleys. But the im- 
 portant fact connected with the aboriginal traces of Wis- 
 consin is that its Animal Mounds do not occur interspersed, 
 as in the Ohio Valley, with civic and sacred enclosures, 
 sepulchral mounds, and works of defence ; but within its 
 well-defined limits, thousands of gigantic basso-relievos of 
 men, beasts, birds, and reptiles, all wrought with persevering 
 labour on the surface of the soil, constitute its distinguish- 
 ing characteristic; and disclose no evidence of their con- 
 struction with any other object in view than that of 
 perpetuating their external forms. The vast levels or 
 sUghtly undulating surfaces of prairie land present peculiarly 
 favourable conditions for the colossal relievos of the native 
 artist : yet not more so than are to be met with in other 
 localities where no such mounds occur. It is importabt 
 therefore to bear in remembrance that defensive or military 
 structures, and such as are apparently designed for sacrificial 
 rites or religious ceremonies, are scarcely to be met with in 
 the territory marked by those singular groups of imitative 
 earthworks. The country, moreover, is well adapted for 
 maintaining a large population, in very diverse stages of 
 social progress. Through its gently undulating surface 
 numerous rivers and streams flow in sluggish, yet limpid 
 current, eastward and westward, to empty themselves into 
 Lake Michigan or the Mississippi. The pools and groups 
 of lakes into which they expand, furnish abundance of wild 
 rice, which is at once a means of sustenance to numerous 
 aquatic birds, and also constituted an important source of 
 supply to the aborigines, so long as they held possession of 
 the territory. The rivers and lakes also abound with excel- 
 lent fish ; and where the soil remains uninvaded by the 
 
XIII.] 
 
 SYMBOLIC MOUNDS. 
 
 305 
 
 lerous 
 •ce of 
 on of 
 ;xcel- 
 tho 
 
 ploughshare of the intruding settler, numerous traces of 
 older agricultural labour show where the Indians cultivated 
 the maize, and developed some of the industrial arts of a 
 settled people. Indian grave-mounds diversify the surface, 
 and enclose ornaments and weapons of the rude nomads 
 that still linger on the outskirts of that western state. But 
 such slight and inartificial mounds arc readily distinguish- 
 able from the remarkable structures of a remoter era which 
 constitute the archaeological characteristic of the region. 
 Here, indeed, as elsewhere, the Indian^i have habitually 
 selected the ancient earthworks as places of sepulture ; and 
 as a rule have given the preference to the larger and more 
 conspicuous mounds. On some of these the surveyors 
 recognised recent graves of the Potowattomies. But their 
 irregular position shows that they bear no relation to the 
 original design. In their superficial character they cor- 
 respond to the slight grave-mounds made with the imper- 
 fect implements of the modern Indians ; and they contrast 
 in all other respects with the laborious construction of the 
 gigantic animal mounds. 
 
 The symbolic earthworks of the Wisconsin plains are not 
 confined to the representation of animals, though the pre- 
 dominance of animal mounds has suggested that name for 
 the whole. Embankments occur in the form of crosses, 
 crescents, angles, and straight lines ; and also seemingly 
 as gigantic representations of the war-club, tobacco-pipe, 
 and other familiar implements or weapons. Some of the 
 crosses and other simpler forms probably originally repre- 
 sented animals, birds, or fishes, with extended wings or 
 fins. But in those, as in the better-defined animal mounds, 
 time has obliterated the minuter touches of the ancient 
 modeller, and effaced indications of his meaning. Yet 
 fancy still recognises among the best preserved relievos the 
 elk, buffalo, bear, fox, otter, and racoon. The lizard is of 
 frequent occurrence ; the turtle and frog also appear ; bir<l8 
 and fishes are repeatedly represented ; and man himself 
 VOL. L U 
 
 li I 
 
 " II 
 
3o6 
 
 BIG ELEPHANT MOUND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 figures among the ancient relievos. Of one form of mound 
 which Mr. Lapham identifies as the otter, seven examples 
 occur. Sixteen cruciform earthworks are described, and 
 the ordinary examples, of all sizes, are counted by hundreds. 
 It is not without reason that some of the larger mounds 
 in the midst of those emblematic earthworks have been 
 designated observatory mounds, and assumed to have been 
 constructed in order to afford a view of the laborious 
 devices. Ordinarily the mound builder is tempted to give 
 greater prominence to his tumulus by erecting it on the 
 s^immit of a hill or bluflf ; but on the prairie land of Wis- 
 consin, such natural elevations are wanting ; and hence the 
 construction of a class of works for which the lowest 
 levels were preferred. The "Big Elephant Mound," which 
 measures 135 feet in length, is constructed in a valley gently 
 sloping to the Mississippi, a few miles below the junction 
 of the Wisconsin River. The ridges on both sides offered a 
 choice of elevated sites ; but the bottom land nearly on a 
 level with the Mississippi at high water, has been purposely 
 chosen, so that the device might be surveyed from the 
 neighbouring heights. Fancy is prompt to assign a mean- 
 ing to the old modellers' works. In this example, the pro- 
 longed snout, or proboscis, has led to its designation as the 
 "Big Elephant Mound ;" and the delineator of it, in the 
 Smithsonian Report for 1872, so confidently relies on its 
 purposed significance that he asks : " Is not the existence 
 of such a mound good evidence of the contemporaneous 
 existence of the mastodon and the Mound-Builders ? " The 
 figure, though comparatively large, is surpassed by many. 
 Some indeed are on a gigantic scale. One mound of pecu- 
 liar, but indeterminate form, tapers for a length of five 
 hundred and seventy feet. At its smaller extremity or tail, 
 it slightly curves to the east. At the opposite extremity 
 are a large cross, and one of the largest circular mounds. 
 Its device can no longer be recognised; but much ingenuity 
 and still more labour, have been expended on its construe- 
 
XIII.] 
 
 DADE COUNTY MOUNDS. 
 
 307 
 
 tion. Another remarkable group in Dade County, includes 
 six quadrupeds of indeterminate species, six parallelograms, 
 a large tumulus, a circle, and a human figure. The animals 
 are grouped in two rows ; and the tumulus seems as though 
 it had been erected as an observatory from which to view 
 the elaborate design. An ingenious English critic recog- 
 nises in it the possible memorial of a triumph like that of 
 the ancient Greek charioteer in the national games, with 
 the appropriate substitution of a sledge for the chariot, 
 and a train of dogs for the fleet racers of the hippodrome. 
 " Taking," he says, " the rudeness of the age and workman- 
 ship into account, the impracticability of the material, and 
 the scale and material, the whole is really not a bad repre- 
 sentation of the dog-drawn sledges of the Kamschatdales of 
 the present day. Supposing their horns to have been 
 omitted, from the impracticability of raising earthworks 
 that would stand well, and in proportion to represent them, 
 they might have signified the elk or the reindfeer. What- 
 ever animal, however, be taken, it is perhaps a legitimate 
 inference that we have here the colossal trophy of a super- 
 Atlantic charioteer at some American race ; why not the 
 curious hippodrome, or, more correctly here, cynodrome, 
 with its starting-cells (carceres), its course, its meta, and 
 road of triumph to the town?" ^ 
 
 It was not necessary for the fanciful interpreter to resort 
 to remote Kamschatka for the model of his dog-drawn 
 sledge, for such are common enough among the Indians of 
 the North-west. But a general survey of the earthworks 
 of Wisconsin in no degree tends to confirm this interpreta- 
 tion, unless in so far as such animal mounds may have been 
 monumental memorials, and trophies of achievements in 
 wars and the chase. As such they are executed on a scale 
 which gives evidence of the systematic expenditure of an 
 enormous amount of labour ; and as the opinion has latterly 
 found favour with some that the great mounds are simply 
 
 ^ Journ. Brit, ArcliOfol, Am, xfA, \. \t. MX, 
 
3o8 
 
 MAGNITUDE OF EARTHWORKS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I" I I 
 
 if 
 
 .h. I 
 
 the result of many successive interments ; and the marks of 
 regular stratification in some of them have been adduced 
 in confirmation of this idea : the corresponding proportions 
 of the animal mounds are significant. In them at least a 
 preconceived design has guided the builders from the out- 
 set ; and some adequate idea of the magnitude of the Dade 
 County group will be formed from a correct estimate of the 
 proportions of the supposed charioteer. He is figured, as 
 is usual in similar mounds, with his limbs extended, and 
 with arms of disproportionate length ; possibly owing to 
 the design originally representing some implement in each 
 hand. From head to foot he measures one hundred and 
 twenty-five feet, and one hundred and forty feet from the 
 extremity of one arm to that of the other. The head alone 
 is a mound twenty-five feet in diameter, and nearly six 
 feet in highest elevation from the surrounding soil. Mea- 
 suring the whole by this scale, it is abundantly apparent 
 that a group, including altogether fifteen mound -figures, 
 must have been a work of immense time and labour, and 
 doubtless owed its origin to some motive or purpose of 
 corresponding magnitude in the estimation of its con- 
 structors. ,; 
 
 Mr. Schoolcraft attempted to solve the mystery of the 
 emblematic mounds by assuming them to be the Totems, or 
 heraldic symbols, in use among the Indian tribes, thus 
 reproduced in earthworks on a gigantic scale. The fox, the 
 bear, the eagle, turtle, or other animal, is selected among 
 them as the sign of the tribe or family. This usage pre- 
 vailed among the Iroquois, Hurons, Algonquins, Cherokees, 
 and other nations occupying very extensive areas; and, 
 accordingly, guided by the superficial resemblance of the 
 Animal Mounds to such totemic signs, Mr. Schoolcraft 
 says : " A tribe could leave no more permanent trace of an 
 esteemed sachem, or honoured individual, than by the erec- 
 tion of one of these monuments. Th ey are clearly sepulchral , 
 and have no other object but to preserve the names of dis- 
 
XIII.] 
 
 ENCLOSED WORKS OF ART. 
 
 309 
 
 tinguished actors in their history." ^ But exploration seems 
 to prove that the emblematical mounds of Wisconsin are 
 not sepulchral ; while any correspondence that may be 
 traced between them and the totemic symbols of tribes once 
 so widely spread as the Algonquins, Iroquois, and Cherokees, 
 only increases the mystery of symbols constructed on this 
 colossal scale, and confined to a territory so limited. So 
 far indeed is a careful survey from confirming any such 
 convenient and summary fancy, that Mr. Lapham states, as 
 the result of elaborate explorations, that he conceives four 
 epochs are traceable in the history of the locality, two of 
 which at least preceded the era of occupation by the Indian 
 tribes. The period of the animal-mound builders strikingly 
 contrasts with that of the earthworks previously described, 
 in the rarity of enclosed works of art. But the few im- 
 plements discovered are full of interest from their obvious 
 resemblance to those of the Mound-Builders. Several of 
 the large hornstone discs which I have seen are of the same 
 type as those found in immense numbers in the Ohio 
 Mounds; and Mr. Albert H. H ^y of Racine, Wisconsin, 
 describes in a letter to me the disi every of about thirty of 
 the same relics, in that vicinity, under circumstances sug- 
 gestive of great antiquity. They lay at a depth of eight 
 feet in undisturbed soil, under a thin bed of peat, in what 
 appeared to have been the ancient bed of the Kuck River. 
 
 The sites of the symbolic earth w^orks of Wisconsin cor- 
 respond to those adopted by the Mound-Builders for their 
 sacred enclosures ; though others of their works, and espe- 
 cially the most remarkable of their animal-mounds, were 
 constructed on prominent heights. Within the fertile 
 region bounded by the great lakes and the Mississippi, a 
 numerous population may have long dwelt undisturbed, in 
 the enjoyment of the profusion which wood and water and 
 the easily cultivated soil supplied. On the bluffs and 
 terraces surmounting the rivers and lakes by which facilities 
 
 ^ Hhlor]] of Fndian Tribes, vol. i. p. 52. 
 
310 
 
 ROCK RIVER WORKS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 
 fh 
 
 of communication with the surrounding territory, and with 
 more distant regions, were commanded, the earthworks are 
 found in extensive and evidently dependent groups. But, 
 unlike the rich memorial mounds of the Scioto Valley, they 
 reveal few enclosed relics to chronicle the history of their 
 erection, and throw light on the race of artists "who labori- 
 ously diversified the natural landscape with such devices. 
 In a few cases, human remains have been found in them, 
 under circumstances which did not clearly point to a modern 
 date ; but in summing up the results of his explorations, 
 Mr. Lapham remarks : — " So far as I have had opportunity 
 to observe, there are no original remains in the mounds of 
 imitative form, beyond a few scattered fragments that may 
 have gained a place there by accident. Many of the mounds 
 have been entirely removed, including the earth beneath 
 for a considerable depth, in the process of grading streets 
 in Milwaukee ; and it is usually found that the natural sur- 
 face had not been disturbed at the time of the erection, but 
 that the several layers or strata of mould, clay, gravel, etc., 
 are continuous below the structure, as on the contiguous 
 grounds. Great numbers of the smaller conical tumuli are 
 also destitute of any remains ; and if human bodies were 
 ever buried under them, they are now so entirely * returned 
 to dust ' that no apparent traces of them are left." * 
 
 The extensive works at Aztalan, on the west branch of 
 Kock Kiver, present analogies of a different kind from the 
 sacred and civic enclosures of the Mound-Builders. They 
 constitute, it is believed, the only ancient enclosure, pro- 
 perly so called, throughout the whole region of the emble- 
 matic mounds ; and, under the name of the " ancient city 
 of Aztalan," were long recarded as one of the wonders of 
 the western world. Early explorers were on the look-out 
 for the mother city of the Aztecs, and the first surveyor of 
 the earthworks on Rock Kiver named them Aztalan, in the 
 full belief that the long-sought city of Mexican tradition 
 
 * Antiquities (^ Wisconsin, p. 80. 
 
XIII.] 
 
 THE NORTHERN AZTALAN. 
 
 3" 
 
 had at length been found. The name was a stimulus to 
 credulity and wonder; and proved the source of much 
 extravagant exaggeration. Walls of brick still sustained 
 by their solid buttresses ; a subterranean vault and stair- 
 way discovered within one of its square mounds ; a subter- 
 ranean passage, arched with stone ; bastions of solid masonry, 
 and other features of the like kind : were all made to cor- 
 respond with the supposed mother-city of the Aztecs, and 
 the cradle -land of America's native civilisation. On being 
 subjected to accurate survey, those wondrous features vanish. 
 Freed, however, from exaggeration and falsehood, the Azta- 
 lan works still present remarkable characteristics. An 
 area of seventeen acres on the banks of the Rock River is 
 enclosed on three sides by a vallum with regular " bastions," 
 as they have been termed ; although both the construction 
 of the walls, and the site of the enclosure — commanded as 
 it is by elevated land on nearly every side, — preclude the 
 idea of its having been a place of defence. Large, square, 
 terraced mounds occupy the northern and southern angles. 
 In one of them a human skeleton was found ; and in others 
 of the mounds coarse pottery occurs ; but both may have 
 been deposited long subsequent to the completion of the 
 earthworks of Aztalan. With these exceptions, nothing 
 has yet rewarded the careful and elaborate excavations of 
 its explorers tending to throw light on the original builders. 
 Its bastions have been tunnelled in vain ; and cuttings 
 made in some of the largest of a remarkable range of 
 tumuli outside the enclosures revealed only ashes, mingled 
 with charcoal and fragments of human bones, unaccom- 
 panied by a single work of art, like those which confer so 
 graphic an interest on the mounds of the Ohio VaUey. 
 
 Assuming the works of Aztalan and the animal mounds 
 of Wisconsin to belong to the same period : Mr. Lapham 
 assigns the conical mounds to a later era. These he regards 
 as built for sepulchral purposes, and exhibiting, both in 
 construction and materials, the workmanship of a greatly 
 
 
 ' ! ^^1 
 
I' I 
 
 V 
 
 312 
 
 ANCIENT GARDEN BEDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 inferior race of builders. Next come what are designated 
 by the modern settlers " ancient garden beds," consisting of 
 low, broad, parallel ridges, as if corn had been planted in 
 drills. They average four feet in width, and the depth of 
 the space between them is six inches. These appearances 
 indicate a more perfect system of agricultural operations 
 than anything known to have been practised by the modern 
 Indian tribes ; but, at the same time, they are no less dis- 
 tinctly disconnected with the construction of the ancient 
 mounds. Where these occur within a cultivated area, the 
 parallel ridges of the old cultivators are carried across them 
 in the same manner as over any other undulation of the 
 ground. It is obvious, therefore, not only that the emble- 
 matic earthworks preceded them, but that they had neither 
 sacredness nor any special significance in the eyes of the 
 cultivators of the soil. Probably, indeed, such traces of 
 agricultural operations belong to a greatly more modern 
 period. 
 
 What, then, are the inferenc "> be drawn from the 
 ancient monuments peculiar to the territory lying immedi- 
 ately to the south of the great copper region of Lake 
 Superior? They are mostly of a negative character, yet 
 not on that account without significance. If we assume 
 the existence of contemporary nations in Wisconsin and the 
 Ohio Valley in the period of the Mound-Builders, the 
 chronicles of that era exhibit them to us in striking con- 
 trast. In the one region every convenient height is 
 crowned with the elaborate fortifications of a numerous and 
 warlike people ; while, on the broad levels of the river- 
 terraces, ingenious geometrical structures prove their skill 
 and intellectual development as applied to the formation of 
 civic and temple enclosures. Their sacred and sepulchral 
 mounds, in like manner, reveal considerable artistic skill, 
 and a singular variety in the rites and customs exacted in 
 the performance of their national worship. Turning to the 
 northern area, all is changed. Along the river- terraces we 
 
XIII.] 
 
 THE WISCONSIN PLAINS. 
 
 313 
 
 look in vain for military structures. The mounds disclose 
 no altars rich with the metallurgic or mimetic workman- 
 ship of their builders ; but, on the contrary, the sole traces 
 of imitative art occur in the external forms of earthworks, 
 the exploration of which confutes the idea of their having 
 been erected over either grave or altar, and reveals no other 
 purpose of their construction. 
 
 When it is considered that, along with the mica of the 
 Alleghanies, the shells of the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian 
 from the ancient centre of American civilisation, the copper 
 of Lake Superior is one of the most abundant materials 
 found in the Mississippi mounds : we are tempted to trace 
 some intimate relation between the warlike occupants of 
 the Ohio and Scioto valleys and the singular race who 
 dwelt in peaceful industry on the well watered and plenti- 
 fully stocked plains to the south of the copper region, and 
 there const ncted their strange colossal memorials of imita- 
 tive art. i he country seems peculiarly adapted by nature 
 as a central neutral land for the continent to the east of the 
 Kocky Mountains. On the east it is guarded by Lake 
 Michigan, and on the north by the great inland sea which 
 constitutes the fountain of the whole lake and river chain 
 that sweeps away on its course of twenty-five hundred 
 miles, over Niagara, and through the islands and rapids 0" 
 the St. Lawrence, to the Atlantic. On the west, with its 
 infant streamlets originating almost from the same source, 
 the Mississippi rolls onward in its majestic course, receiving 
 as its tributaries the great rivers which rise alike on the 
 western slope of the Alleghanies and the eastern declivities 
 of the Rocky Mountains, and loses itself at length in the 
 Gulf of Mexico. This wonderful river system, and the 
 great level contour of the regions which it drains, exercised 
 a remarkable influence on the extinct civilisation of America, 
 as well as on later Indian nomad life, making its primitive 
 eras so different from any phase of Europe's history. The 
 Indians who traded with Carticr at Tadousac, on the lower 
 
 II 
 
FT 
 
 [■: I'll! 
 
 IN 
 
 1 
 
 3U 
 
 A SACRED NEUTRAL LAND. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 St. Lawrence, and those whom Raleigh met wuth on the 
 coast of Carolina, obtained their copper from the same 
 northern region towards which the head- waters of the 
 Missitot*T)pi and the St. Lawrence converge ; while the world 
 of Europe between the Rhine and the Baltic remained, even 
 in its late Roman era, almost as much apart from that on 
 its Mediterranean shores as the America of centuries before 
 Columbus. It seems, therefore, not inconceivable that the 
 prairie land of Wisconsin derives some of its archaeological 
 characteristics from its relation to the physical geography 
 of the region between the Rocky Mountains and the 
 Atlantic, possibly as a sacred neutral ground attached to 
 the metallurgic region of Lake Superior, like the famous 
 pipe-stone quarry of the Couteau des Prairies. 
 
 This idea of some peculiar relations connecting the 
 symbolic architects of Wisconsin with the Mound-Builders 
 of the Ohio, derives confirmation from the few but remark- 
 able animal mounds of the latter, in which their connection 
 with the religious rites of the ancient race is borne out. 
 One example of an animal mound, upwards of 250 feet 
 in length, and probably designed to represent a bear, occu- 
 pies a high level terrace on the west bank of the Scioto 
 river. Unlike any of the symbolic mounds of Wiscon- 
 sin, it is surrounded bv an oval embankment measurin<]j 
 four hundred and eighty feet in greatest diameter. On the 
 south side a space of about ninety feet wide breaking the 
 continuity of the embankment, is covered by a long exterior 
 mound, leaving two avenues of approach where it overlaps 
 the inner oval. This mound has not been opened ; but in 
 the process of excavating the Ohio canal, large quantities of 
 mica, similar to what occurs so abundantly in the sacrificial 
 mounds, were found in its immediate vicinity. 
 
 The same canal intersects Newark earthworks ; and there, 
 within another elliptic vallum, is the Eagle Mound, measur- 
 ing 155 feet in length of body, and 200 feet between the 
 tips of the wings. It is only -x minor feature of the remark- 
 
XIII.] 
 
 THE ALLIGATOR MOUND. 
 
 315 
 
 the 
 
 able group, already described, which includes geometrical 
 enclosures, mounds, and avenues ; but it is distinguished 
 from all the others, by the great scale of its enclosing walls, 
 and interior ditch. Unfortunately it was opened by a 
 former proprietor in search of treasure ; and no further 
 record of its contents has been preserved, except that it 
 covered a hearth of a similar character to the altars already 
 described as characteristic of the sacrificial mounds. The 
 fact, however, illustrates the contrast between works bearing 
 so much external resemblance to each other as the symbolic 
 mounds of the Mississippi Valleys and those of Wisconsin. 
 In the absence of all included relics of worship or inhuma- 
 tion, the latter seem but as symbols of the rites practised by 
 the southern Mound- Builders. 
 
 About six miles higher up the same valley, the " Alli- 
 gator," of Licking County, attracts attention as another 
 remarkable colossal animal-mound. It occupies the summit 
 of a lofty hill or spur, which projects into the Racoon Creek 
 Valley. The outline and general contour of this huge 
 lizard-mound are still clearly defined, though agricultural 
 operations have obliterated some of the minuter traces 
 noted by early visitors. The average height is four feet ; 
 but the head, shoulders, and rump, are elevated in parts to 
 a height of fully six feet. The tail curls off to the left side, 
 and is now so indefinite, as it tapers towards a point, that 
 the precise measurement is uncertain ; but the total length 
 of the " Alligator " may be stated at about 220 feet. Exca- 
 vations made at various points have only shown that the 
 figure has been modelled in fine clay upon a framework of 
 stones of considerable size. But when I visited it, a rain 
 gully had exposed part of the side of the hill, showing this to 
 consist to a large extent of loose atones ; so that the mound 
 is no doubt constructed with materials obtained on tlic 
 spot. A raised circular structure, designated the altar, and 
 covered with stones which had been much exposed to the 
 action of fire, is described by former observers aa standing 
 
 '58 
 
 4s 
 
 11 \ 
 
3i6 
 
 THE GREAT SERPENT, OHIO. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 %\ 
 
 on the right side, and connected with the summit of the 
 mound by a graded way ten feet broad ; but the traces of 
 '' his feature are now very slight. 
 
 The site of this remarkable monument commands a view 
 of the entire valley for eight or ten miles, and is by far the 
 most conspicuous point within that limit. An ancient 
 fortified hill stands about three-fourths of a mile distant on 
 a spur of the same range of heights ; and another entrenched 
 hill nearly faces it on the opposite side of the valley. 
 Numerous mounds occupy both the hill-tops and the levels 
 in surrounding valleys ; and it is only the luxuriant gi'owth 
 of the forest which conceals the great Newark group, with 
 its geometrical enclosures, parallels, and mounds. The 
 Alligator Mound may, therefore, be assumed to symbolise 
 some object of special awe or veneration, thus reared on one 
 of the chief high-places of the nation, where the ancient 
 people of the valley could witness the celebration of rites 
 of their unknown worship. Its site was obviously selected 
 as the most prominent natural feature in a populous dis- 
 trict abounding with military, civic, and religious structures. 
 Yet its imposing proportions are surpassed by another sym- 
 bolic work constructed on a height remote from any traces 
 •of ancient settlement. 
 
 The Great Serpent of Adam's County, Ohio, occupies the 
 extreme point of a crescent-formed spur of land formed at 
 the junction of two tributary streams of the Ohio. This 
 elevated site has been cut to a conformity with an oval cir- 
 cumvallation on its summit, leaving a smooth external 
 platform ten feet wide, with an inclination towards thci 
 embankment on every side. Immediately outside the inner 
 point of this oval is the serpent's head, with distended jaws, 
 as if in the act of swallowing what, in comparison with its 
 huge dimensions, is spoken of as an ^^g, though it measures 
 100 feet in length. Conforming to the summit of the hill, 
 the body of the serpent winds back, in graceful undulations, 
 terminating with a triple coil at the tail. The figure is 
 
XIII.] 
 
 SERPENT SYMBOLS. 
 
 3n 
 
 boldly defined, the earth-wrought relievo being upwards 
 of five feet in height by thirty feet in base at the centre of 
 the body ; and the entire length, following its convolutions, 
 cannot measure less than a thousand feet. 
 
 This singular monument stands alone, and though classed 
 here with the symbolic animal-mounds of Wisconsin, it has 
 no analogue among the numerous basso-relievos wrought on 
 the broad prairie-lands of that region. It is indeed alto- 
 gether unique among the earthworks of the New World, and 
 without a parallel in the Old ; though it has not unnaturally 
 furnished the starting-point for a host of speculations rela- 
 tive to serpent- worship. Among the miniature sculptures 
 of the Mound-Builders, repeated examples of the serpent 
 occur. On one of the altars of " Mound City " was a pipe 
 of the form peculiar to the mounds, with a rattlesnake 
 coiled round the bowl. From another mound of the same 
 earthwork several sculptured tablets were recovered, repre- 
 senting the rattlesnake, delicately carved in fine cinnamon- 
 coloured sandstone ; and one of them carefully enveloped 
 in sheets of copper. The character of these sculptures, and 
 the circumstances under which they were discovered, sug- 
 gested to the explorers that they were not designed for 
 ornaments , but had some relation to superstitious rites. 
 Other serpents are represented by the Mound-Sculptors ; 
 but the rattlesnake is the favourite type. I recently 
 examined, in the Pcabody Museum of ArchoBology at Cam- 
 bridge, Mass., a series of eighteen engraved circular plates 
 made from the shell of the Pyrula, which were obtained 
 from the Brakebill and Lick Creek Mounds, in East Ten- 
 nessee. Thirteen of them bear the same device of a rattle- 
 snake. Among the Mexicans it was the symbol of royalty ; 
 and this helps to give a special interest to a remarkable 
 tablet figured here, in the same style of art. so suggestive of 
 Mexican affinities. It is a disk of fine-grained sandstone, 
 nearly 8i inches in diameter, and three-quarters of an inch 
 thick, on which is graven the elaborate device of two inter-? 
 
 J 
 
3i8 
 
 INTAGLIO EARTHWORKS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 twined rattlesnakes, as shown in Fig. 73. On the back a 
 slight ornament runs round the border ; and a fractured 
 mort'ce-hole, somewhat out of the true centre, shows where 
 a handle has been attached to it. It was fourd in two 
 pieces, near Lake Washington, Issaquina County, Missis- 
 sippi ; and is now in the possession of Mr. W. Marshall 
 Anderson, of Circleville, Ohio. 
 
 The imitative mounds of Wisconsin hitherto described 
 are in bold relief ; but on the Indian Prairie, a few miles 
 
 "I 
 
 «*; 
 
 Fio. 73.— Lake Wiwhington Disk. 
 
 from the city of Milwaukee, there occur five designs, wrought 
 — to use a term of European art, — in intaglio. Instead of 
 the representations of animals being executed in relief, the 
 process has been reversed, and the outline has been com- 
 pleted by piling the excavated earth round the edge. A 
 few similar examples have been noted at other points ; but 
 such a process is more liable to effacement in the progress 
 of time, unless renewed like the famous " White Horse " of 
 Berkshire, by a periodical " scouring." The chall'. hills of 
 southern England present peculiar facilities for effective 
 
XIII.] 
 
 SUGGESTIVE INFERENCES. 
 
 319 
 
 colossal intaglio work. Another White Horse, ascribed to 
 Saxon victors of the Danes, accompanies a group of British 
 earthworks on Braddon Hill, Wiltshire ; and the colossal 
 human figure, armed with a club, at Cerne, in Dorsetshire, 
 preserves a still closer counterpart to those scattered over the 
 prairie lands beyond the western shores of Lake Michigan. 
 But for our present purpose the comparison of these 
 ancient earth w^orks with others clearly traceable to modem 
 Indian tribes, is more important than any analogies 
 between the antiquities of the two hemispheres. One fact 
 of obvious significance is the great scale on which the pre- 
 historic races of America wrought, and the consequent 
 evidences of numbers, and of combined labour pcrseveringly 
 applied to the accomplishment of their aim. It is difficult 
 to convey any definite conception of this by mere descrip- 
 tion, even though accompanied with minute measurements. 
 A single cruciform mound measures four hundred and 
 twenty feet between the extreme points of its limbs. Liz- 
 ard and other animal-mounds ranging from eighty to a 
 hundred and fifty feet in length occur in extensive groups ; 
 and by their systematic arrangement, impress the mind 
 with the idea of protracted toil carried on under the control 
 of some supreme rule, or stimulated by motives of para- 
 mount influence. The Indian tribes that have come under 
 observation are as diverse in habits, arts, and religious rites 
 as in language ; but none of them have manifested any 
 capacity for the combination involved in the construction of 
 monuments which more nearly resemble the great embank- 
 ments and viaducts of modern railway engineering. The 
 extent of such works indicates a settled condition of society, 
 and industry far beyond that of the Iroquoia Confederacy. 
 In all this there may be nothing absolutely incompatible 
 with the idea of the Indians being degenerate descendants 
 of such a people, yet it is unsupported by proof. No 
 modern tribe preserves any traces of such ancestral construc- 
 tive habits ; and while the animal-mounds appear to bo 
 
 K .* 
 
 I' it 
 
 
 i*' 
 
320 
 
 THE ANCIENT RACE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 WM 
 
 regarded with superstitious reverence by the Indians, and 
 are rarely disturbed except for purposes of sepulture, they 
 lay no claim to them as the work of their fathers. The 
 only theory of their origin is, that they are the work of the 
 great Manitou, and were made by him to reveal to his red 
 children the plentiful supply of game that awaits them in 
 the world of spirits. The idea is a consoling one to tribes 
 whose hunting-grounds have been invaded and laid desolate ; 
 and it is fully as philosophical as a theory gravely pro- 
 pounded to the American Scientific Association, that the 
 cruciform and curvilinear earthworks intermingled with the 
 animal-mounds include characters of the Phoenician alpha- 
 bet, and are half-obliterated inscriptions commemorative of 
 explorations by the great voyagers of antiquity. 
 
 What then are the inferences thus far deducible as to the 
 races of Northern America in ante-Columbian centuries? 
 Assuming a community of arts, and certain intimate rela- 
 tions in race and social condition, among the ancient people 
 who worked the mines on Lake Superior, and constructed 
 the varied earthworks that reach southward into Indiana, 
 Ohio, and Kentucky: there is no reason to suppose that 
 they were united as one nation. While coincidences of a 
 remarkable kind in the construction, and still more in the 
 dimensions of their great earthworks, point to a common 
 knowledge of geometrical configuration, and a standard of 
 measurement : no two earthworks so entirely correspond as 
 to show an absolute identity of purpose. The marked diver- 
 sity between the truncated, pyramidal mounds of the states 
 on the Gulf, the geometrical enclosures of Ohio, and the 
 symbolic earthworks of Wisconsin, indicate varied usages 
 of distinct communities. A dense population must have 
 centred in certain favourite localities, still marked by evi- 
 dence of the combined labours of a numerous people ; and 
 some supreme rule, like that of the Incas of Peru, must 
 have regulated the operations requisite for the execution of 
 works planned on so comprehensive a scale. 
 
XIII.] 
 
 A SACERDOTAL CASTE. 
 
 321 
 
 The Scioto and the Ohio valleys, it may be presumed, 
 were the seats of separate states, with frontier populations 
 living in part on the produce of the chase ; but depending 
 largely on agricultural industry for the sustenance of the 
 communities crowded on the flats and river- valleys where 
 their monuments abound, and for the supply of the work- 
 men by whose combined labour they were constructed. 
 The religious character and uses ascribed to one important 
 class of their earthworks, in which scientific skill is most 
 clearly manifested, points to the probable existence of a 
 sacerdotal order, such as played an important part in 
 the polity both of Mexico and Peru. There is indeed so 
 great a discrepancy between the remarkable combination of 
 science and skill in the execution of the Ohio earthworks, 
 and the crude state of the arts otherwise associated with 
 them, as to suggest the idea of a sacerdotal caste, like the 
 Brahmins of India, distinct in race, and superior in intel- 
 lectual acquirements to the great mass of the people. 
 
 Of the physical cliaracteristics of the Mound-Builders, 
 notwithstanding the ransacking of many sepulchral mounds, 
 we possess as yet very partial evidence. This department 
 of the subject will come under review in a subsequent 
 chapter ; and it will then be seen that while the accepted 
 Mound-Builders' type of head has been largely based on the 
 very specimen selected by Dr. Morton, as " the perfect type 
 of Indian conformation," with its undoubted traces of com-^ 
 pression, and of the use of the cradle -board, go character- 
 istic of the Indian hunter : it seems not improbable that a 
 systematic exploration of the mounds may disclose evidence 
 of a ruling class differing physically as well as intellectually 
 from the mass of the community l)y whose toil the enduring 
 monuments of their singular rites and customs have been 
 perpetuated. -- _^— -.^,^-.— ^ 
 
 But, while the Mound-Builders are essentially prehistoric, 
 according to all New World chronology, there is nothing in 
 the disclosures hitherto made calculated to suggest for them 
 
 VOL. I. 1 X 
 
322 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE RACE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 an extremely remote era. Tlie marvellous traces of geo- 
 metrical skill in their great earthworks, more than any- 
 thing else, separate them from every known race north of 
 Mexico. The indications of antiquity in the mines of Lake 
 Superior, and the mounds of Ohio, suggest no such enor- 
 mous intervals of time as perplex us in attempting to deal 
 with the relics of the caves and river-valleys of Europe. 
 The refilled trenches on the barren rocks of Isle Koyal 
 manifestly demand centuries for the slow accumulation of 
 sufficient soil and vegetable matter to refill the excavations. 
 Dr. Hildreth ascribes eight hundred years of growth to a 
 tree felled on one of the mounds at Marietta ; and other 
 trustworthy authorities, including Messrs. Squier and Davis, 
 furnish similar evidence for lesser periods of four, five, and 
 six centuries. The longest term thus indicated would be 
 little enough for the filling up of the deserted trenches of 
 Isle Royal. But however far back we carry the era of the 
 Mound-Builders, the chief change which the regions occu- 
 pied by them have since undergone, is the clothing of their 
 valleys, and the earthworks erected there, with the forests 
 which help us to some partial guess at the intervening 
 centuries since their disappearance. The animal remains 
 hitherto found in their mounds are those of the existing 
 species of deer, bears, wolves, and other fauna, not even now 
 wholly extirpated from Ohio ; and while their ingenious 
 sculptures prove that they were familiar with a more 
 southern, and even a South- American tropical fauna : 
 nothing has yet been discovered to connect them with an 
 extinct, much less a fossil mammalia, such as the mastodon.: 
 The probability rather is that the ruins of Clark's Work, or 
 Fort Ancient, may match in antiquity with those of Eng- 
 land's Norman keeps, and even that their builders may 
 have lingered on into centuries nearer the age of Columbus. 
 The Zuni, Moquis, Pimos, and other tribes of New 
 Mexico, have left curious evidences of a people of gentle 
 skill in agriculture, in ceramic art, and above all, in archi- 
 
xni.] INFERIORITY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. 323 
 
 tecture, beyond anything pertaining to the northern Indians, 
 or even in some respects to the Mound- Builders. But 
 there still remains the distinct and perplexing element 
 of a people so partially civilised, and comparatively rude ; 
 yet able to construct squares, circles, ellipses, and other 
 geometrical figures on a scale which would tax the skill of 
 many a well -trained civil engineer of the present day. 
 
 Other characteristic traits of the Mound-Builders, espe- 
 cially as shown in their ingenious sculptures, and illustrated 
 by their mimetic art, have yet to be considered. But this 
 at least is apparent, that the most advanced among the 
 Indian tribes of North America within its historical period 
 represent a phase of life essentially inferior to that which 
 had preceded it. Before the great river- valleys were over- 
 shadowed with their ancient forests, nations dwelt there 
 practising arts and rites which involved many germs of 
 civilisation. Their defensive military skill, their agricul- 
 tural industry, and even their ideas of the relations 
 of man to some supreme spiritual power, are suggested 
 by evidence, which, though inadequate for any detailed 
 chronicle, discloses glimpses of an unwritten history full 
 of interest even in this tantalising form. We have still to 
 consider other characteristics of the ancient race, including 
 their geographical n.nd ethnical relations. But before doing 
 so, it is desirable to review the history of other ancient 
 American races among whom civilisation attained a higher 
 development, and of whom we have historical evidence, as 
 well as the chronicles which archaeology supplies. 
 
 
 !'J; 
 
 
I I 
 
 
 &f p, 
 
 324 
 
 T/f£: TOLTECS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILISATION. 
 
 THE TOLTECS — IXTLILXOCHITL — THE AZTECS— AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE— A2TALAIT 
 — THE VALLEY OP MEXICO — MONTEZUMa'S CAPITAL — ITS VANISHED SPLENDOUR 
 —MEXICAN CALENDAR— THE CALENDAR STONE— MEXICAN DEITIES— TOLTEO 
 CIVIUSATION— RACE ELEMENTS— THE TOLTEC CAPITAL— TEZCUCAN PALACES— 
 THEIR MODERN VESTIGES— QUETZALCOATL— THE PYRAMID OF CHOLULA— THE 
 SACRED CITY— THE MOQUI INDIANS — THE HOLY CITY OP PERU— WORSHIP OF 
 THE SUN— ASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE— AGRICULTURE— THE LLAMA— WOVEN 
 TEXTURES — SCIENCE AND ART— NATIVE INSTITUTIONS— METALLURGY — ORIGIN 
 OP THE MEXICANS— MINOLINQ OP RACES. 
 
 The Toltecs play a part in the initial pages of the New 
 World's story akin to the fabled Cyclops of antiquity. 
 They belong to that vague era which lies beyond all definite 
 records, and furnish a name for the historian and the 
 ethnologist alike to conjure with : like the Druids or the 
 Picts of the old British antiquary, or the Phoenicians 
 of his American disciple. Yet it is not without its value 
 thus to discover among the nations of the New World, 
 even a fabulous history, with its possible fragments of 
 truth embodied in the myth. Mr. Gallatin has com- 
 piled a laborious digest of the successive migrations and 
 dynasties of Mexico, as chronicled from elder sources, by 
 Ixtlilxochitl, Sahagun, Veytia, Clavigero, the Mendoza 
 Collection, the Codex Tellurianus, and Acosta.^ The 
 oldest dates bring the Toltec wanderers to Huehuetla- 
 pallan, a.d. 387, and close their dynasty in the middle of 
 the tenth century; when they are superseded by Chichi- 
 
 ' American Ethnological Sockty'a Transactions, vol. i. p. 102. 
 
XIV.] 
 
 IXTLILHOCHITL. 
 
 "^^ 
 
 mecas and Tezcucans, whose joint sovereignty, by the 
 unanimous concurrence of authorities, endured till the 
 sixteenth century. But, meanwhile, the same authorities 
 chronicle the foundation of Mexico or Tenochtitlan, vari- 
 ously in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, by Aztec 
 conquerors ; and profess to supply the dynastic chronology 
 of Aztec power. The earliest date is not too remote for the 
 commencement of a civilisation that has left such evidences 
 of its later maturity ; but unfortunately the various 
 authorities differ not by years only, but by centuries. 
 Ixtlilxochitl carries back the founding of Mexico upwards 
 of a century farther than any other authority ; and in the 
 succeeding date, which professes to fix the election of its 
 king, Acamapichtli, the discrepancies between him and 
 other authorities vary from two to considerably more than 
 two and a half centuries, and leave on the mind of the 
 critical student impressions as unsubstantial as those per- 
 taining to the regal dynasties of Alban and Sabine Rome. 
 Spanish chroniclers and modern historians have striven to 
 piece into coherent details the successive migrations into 
 the Vale of Anahuac, and the desertion of the mythic 
 Aztalan for the final seat of Aztec empire on the lake of 
 Tezcuco ; but their shadowy history marshals before us only 
 shapes vague as the legends of the engulfed Atlantis. 
 
 There is something suggestive of doubt relative to much 
 else that is greatly more modern, to find the historian of 
 the Conquest of Mexico tracing down the migrations and 
 conquests of the Toltecs from the seventh till the twelfth 
 century, when the Acolhunns or Tezcucans, the Aztecs, and 
 others, superseded them in the Great Valley. We turn to 
 the foot-notes, so abundant in the carefully elaborated 
 narrative of Prescott, and we find his chief or sole authority 
 is the christianised half-breed Don Fernando de Alva, or 
 Ixtlilxochitl, who held the ofiice of Indian interpreter of the 
 Viceroyalty of New Spain in the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century. Compared with such an authority, Bedo 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 ' ,» 
 
 f '' 
 
 ' i, ,'i 
 
 i I 
 
 TTkj 
 Its 
 
 ■ i 
 
 m 
 
326 
 
 THE AZTECS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 should be indisputable as to the details of Hengist and 
 Horsa's migrations, and Geoffrey of Monmouth may be 
 quoted implicitly for the history of Arthur's reign. 
 
 But the Aztecs, at any rate, are no mythic or fabulous 
 race. The conquest of their land belongs to the glories 
 of Charles v., and is contemporary with what Europe 
 reckons as part of its modern history. The letters of its 
 conqueror are still extant ; the gossiping yet graphic 
 marvels of his campaigns, ascribed to the pen of Bemal 
 Diaz, a soldier of the Conquest, have been diligently ran- 
 sacked for collation and supplementary detail ; and the 
 ecclesiastical chroniclers of Mexican conquest and coloni- 
 sation, have all contributed to the materials out of which 
 Prescott has woven his fascinating picture of Hernando 
 Cortes and his great life-work. It is a marvellous historical 
 panorama, glittering with a splendour as of the mosques 
 and palaces of Old Granada. But a growing inclination is 
 felt to test the Spanish chroniclers by surviving relics of 
 that past which they have clothed for us in more than 
 oriental magnificence ; and, for this purpose, to relume that 
 curious phase of native civilisation which the Conquest 
 abruptly ended. Yucatan and Central America still reveal 
 indispu^'ble memorials of an era of native architectural 
 skill, to which attention must be directed. But, mean- 
 while, it is important to note that an assumed correspon- 
 dence between the architecture of Central America and that 
 which is atiirmed to have existed in Mexico at the time of 
 the Conquest constitutes the basis of many fallacious argu- 
 ments on the nature and extent of Aztec civilisation in 
 the era of the second Montezuma. Again, the conflicting 
 elements apparent between the barbarous rites and canni- 
 balism ascribed to the Aztecs, and the evidences of their 
 matured arts and high civilisation, have been the plentiful 
 source of theories as to Toltecan and other earlier deriva- 
 tions for all that pertained to such manifestations of intel- 
 lect and inventive genius. It is important, therefore, to 
 
XIV.] 
 
 AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 327 
 
 determine the actual character of Mexican architecture. 
 The remains of the extinct Mound-Builders are full of 
 wonder for us ; but the reputed magnificence of Monte- 
 zuma's capital throws their earthworks into the shade, as 
 things pertaining to America's childhood. Before, however, 
 this conclusion can be accepted, it is indispensable that we 
 test, by existing evidence, the descriptions of Mexican art 
 and architecture handed down to us by chroniclers of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 A peculiar style is recognised as pertaining to the native 
 architecture of America, which it has been the favourite 
 fancy of American antiquaries to trace to an Egyptian or 
 Phoenician source. Alike in general character and mode of 
 construction, in the style of sculpture, and the hieroglyphic 
 decorations which enrich their walls : the ruined palaces 
 and temples of Mexico, as well as of Yucatan and Central 
 America, have been supposed to reproduce striking charac- 
 teristics of the Nile valley. But the experienced eye of 
 Stephens saw only elements of contrast instead of com- 
 parison ; and while Prescott sums up his history of Mexican 
 conquest with this conclusion, "that the coincidences are 
 sufficiently strong to authorise a belief that the civilisation 
 of Anahuac was, in some degree, influenced by that of 
 eastern Asia," he adds, that the discrepancies are such as to 
 carry back the communication to a period so remote as to 
 leave its civilisation, in all its essential features, peculiar 
 and indigenous. 
 
 It is not always easy to determine the characteristics of 
 some of the most famous monuments of Mexican art. The 
 ruined city of Aztalan, on the western prairies : after fill- 
 ing the imagination with glowing fancies of a Baalbek or 
 Palmyra of the Nev^ World, from whence the Aztecs had 
 transplanted the arts of an obliterated civilisation to the 
 Mexican plateau, shrunk before the gaze of a truthful sur- 
 veyor into a mere group of mounds and earthworks, pre- 
 senting no other analogies than those which class them 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 h 
 
 
 V 
 
328 
 
 AZTALAN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 with the works of the American Mound- Builders. It may 
 be, however, that a critical survey will reveal traits in the 
 later Aztecs of Anahuac, rendering such an ancestral birth- 
 land not wholly inconsistent with their actual condition 
 when brought into contact with the civilisation of Europe. 
 Such at least seems to be the tendency of modern dis- 
 closures ; if, indeed, they do not point to the possibility 
 that much even of the latest phase of Mexican civilisation 
 may present closer analogies to the actual Aztalan of the 
 Wisconsin prairies than to the fancied mother-city of the 
 Aztecs. 
 
 • Midway across the continent of North America, where it 
 narrows towards a point between the Gulf of Mexico and 
 the Pacific, the civilisation of the New World appears to 
 have converged at the close of the fifteenth century. Here 
 the traveller from the Atlantic coast, after passing through 
 gorgeous tropical flowers and aromatic shrubs of the deadly 
 tier7'a caliente, emerges at length into a purer atmosphere. 
 The vanilla, the indigo, and flowering cacao-groves are 
 gradually left behind. The sugar-cane and the banana 
 next disappear ; and he looks down through the gorges of 
 the elevated iierra templada on the vegetation of the 
 tropics, carpeting, and scenting with its luscious but deadly 
 odours, the region which stretches along the Mexican Gulf. 
 Higher still are regions where the wheat and other grains 
 of Europe's temperate zone replace the tall native maize ; 
 until at length he enters the tierra fria: climbing a suc- 
 cession of terraces representing every zone of temperature, 
 till he rests or the summit of the Cordillera. Beyond this 
 the volcanic peaks of the Andes tower into the regions of 
 perpetual snow ; while the traveller crosses the once thickly- 
 wooded table-land into the valley of Mexico : an oval basin 
 about sixty-seven leagues in circumference, and elevated 
 beyond the deadly malaria and enervating heat of the 
 coast, into a temperate climate, nearly seven thousand five 
 hundred feet above the sea. Here, encompassed by the 
 
[chap. 
 
 t may 
 
 in the 
 
 birth- 
 
 iditicn 
 
 kirope. 
 rn dis- 
 sibility 
 iisation 
 L of tlie 
 r of the 
 
 svhere it 
 
 ico and 
 
 pearB to 
 
 -. Here 
 through 
 
 le deadly 
 
 [losphere. 
 
 oves are 
 banana 
 
 gorges of 
 of the 
 
 at deadly 
 can Gulf, 
 er grains 
 ^e maize ; 
 ng a sue- 
 aperature, 
 yond this 
 regions of 
 
 lee thickly- 
 oval basin 
 i elevated 
 :;at of the 
 >usand five 
 ed by the 
 
 XIV.] 
 
 THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 
 
 tm 
 
 salt marshes of the Tezcucan Lake, stood the ancivint 
 Tenochtitlan or Mexico, " The Venice of the Aztecs." 
 
 In the month of October 1519, Don Diego de Ordaz 
 effected the ascent of the volcanic Popocatepetl, from whence 
 he beheld the valley of Mexico with its curious chain of 
 lakes ; and caught a glimpse of the far-f;imed capital of 
 Montezuma, with its white towers and pyramidal teocallis 
 reflecting back the sun from their stuccoed walls. The 
 scene seemed to realise such a dream of ror • e as Bernal 
 Diaz reports of Cempoal : '*The Buildings," ui o - s, " having 
 been lately whitewashed and plastered, one of <>' r horsemen 
 w^as so struck Avith the splendour of their appearance in the 
 sun, that he came back in full speed to Co.Hes to tell him 
 that the walls of the houses were of silver!" The men of 
 that generation which witnessed the discoveries of mighty 
 empires, and an El Dorado beyond the known limits of the 
 world, had their imaginations expanded to the reception of 
 any conceivable wonders. Sir Thomas More constructed 
 his Utopia out of such materials ; and Othello styles his 
 wonderful rela tions " of antres vast and deseits idle," a 
 " traveller's history." 
 
 The poetical imagination of Columbus was one of the 
 sources of his power, whereby he anticipated withundoubt- 
 ing faith the realisation of his grand iifev^ork. But from 
 the position in which Cortes was placed, it was his interest 
 to give currency to the highly-coloured visions of his first 
 pioneers, rather than to transmit to Europe the colder 
 narrative of matured experience. A})proachiiig the Mexican 
 capital, he exclaims in his first burst of enthusiasm : " Wo 
 could compare it to nothing but the enchanted scenes . > 
 had read of in Atnadis de Oa/id, from the ^reat towers and 
 temples, a»d other edifices of lime and stone which seemed 
 to rise up out of the water." To achieve the recognised 
 mastery of this scene of enc^iaivtment, he had not only to 
 conquer its Mexi(jan lords, but to defeat his Spanish foes, 
 and to win to his side that Emperor who, while shaping 
 
 %ii 
 
 
 
 I T 
 
330 
 
 MONTEZUMA'S CAPITAL. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 Europe's history in one of its mightiest revolutions, could 
 control the destinies of the New World. When reading the 
 accounts transmitted to Spain of the gorgeous treasures of 
 Montezuma's palaces, we have to bear in remembrance that 
 the treasures themselves perished in the retreat of the noche 
 triste, as the city itself vanished in the final siege and 
 capture. The very dreams of an excited imagination could 
 become realities of the past to the narrators themselves, 
 when every test of their truth had been swept away. 
 
 On the 9th of November 1519, Cortes made his first 
 entry into the capital of Montezuma, and from thence he 
 wrote to the Emperor Charles v., giving an account of the 
 Indian metropolis, with its palaces and stately mansions, 
 far si:vpassing in grandeur and beauty the ancient Moorish 
 capital of Cordova. Conduits of solid masonry supplied the 
 city with water, and furnished means of maintaining hang- 
 ing-gardens luxurious as those of ancient Babylon. " There 
 is one place," says Cortes, " somewhat inferior to the rest, 
 attached to which is a beautiful garden with balconies 
 extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having 
 a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid ;" and he adds, 
 " Within the city, the palaces of the cacique Montezuma 
 are so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their 
 beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is 
 nothing equal to them." The population of ancient Mexico, 
 " the greatest and noblest city of the whole New World," 
 as Cortes styles it, amounted, according to the lowest com- 
 putation of its conquerors, to three hundred thousand ; and 
 its streets and canals were illuminated at night by the 
 blaze from the altars of numberless teocallis that reared their 
 pyramidal summits in the streets and squares of what Pres- 
 cott fitly calls " this city of enchantment." Vast causeways, 
 defended by drawbridges, and wide enough for ten or 
 twelve horsemen to ride abreast, attracted the admiring 
 wonder of the Spaniards by the skill and geometrical 
 precision with which they were constructed. " The great 
 
XIV.] 
 
 ITS VANISHED SPLENDOUR. 
 
 street facing the southern causeway was wide, and extended 
 some miles in nearly a straight line through the centre of 
 the city. A spectator standing at one end of it, as his eye 
 ranged along the deep vistaof temples, terraces, and gardens, 
 might clearly discern the other, with the blue mountains in 
 the distance, which, in the transparent atmosphere of the 
 table-land, seemed almost in contact with the buildings."^ 
 Near the centre of the city rose a huge pyramidal pile, 
 dedicated to the war-god of the Aztecs, the tutelary deity 
 of the city : second in size only to the great pyramid-temple 
 of Cholula, and occupying the area on which now stands 
 the Cathedral of modern Mexico. Beyond the Lake of 
 Tezcuco stood the rival capital of that name, resplendent 
 with a corresponding grandeur and magnificence ; and the 
 whole Mexican valley burst on the eyes of the conquerors 
 as a beautiful vision, glittering with towns and villages, 
 with rich gardens, and broad lakes crowded with the canoes 
 of a thriving and busy populace. 
 
 Three centuries and a half have intervened since Cortes 
 entered the gorgeous capital of Montezuma ; and what 
 remains now of its ancient splendour, of the wonders of its 
 palaces, the massive grandeur of its temples, or the cyclopean 
 solidity of its conduits and causeways ? Literally, not a 
 vestige. The city of Constantino has preserved, in spite of 
 dl the destructive vicissitudes of siege and overthrow, 
 enduring memorials of the griuideur that pertained to the 
 Byzantine capital more than a thousand years ago. Rome 
 has been sacked by Goth, Hun, Lombard, and Frank ; yet 
 memorials not only of three or four centuries, but of genera- 
 tions before the Christian era, survive. Even Jerusalem 
 appears to have some stones of her ancient walls still left 
 one upon another. In spite, therefore, of the narrative of 
 desolating erasure which describes to ua the final siege and 
 capture of Mexico, we must assume its edifices and cause- 
 ways to have been for the most part more slight and fragile 
 
 1 Preaoott's Conquest of Mexico, b, hi. ch, ix. 
 
332 
 
 MEXICAN CALENDAR. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 than the description of its conquerors implies, or some 
 evidences of such extensive and solid masonry must have 
 survived to our time. Yet if we look in vain for its 
 architectural remains, evidence of another kind shows what 
 its civilisation really was. Mr. Tylor describes the ploughed 
 fields around it as yielding such abundance of obsidian 
 arrow heads, pottery, and clay figures, that it is impossible 
 to tread on any spot w^here there is no relic of old Mexico 
 within reach. He left England full of doubts as to the cre- 
 dibility of the historians of the conquest ; but personal 
 observation inclines him rather " to blame the chroniclers 
 for having had no eyes for the wonderful things that sur- 
 rounded them."^ 
 
 One trustworthy memorial of this native civilisation is 
 the famous Calendar Stone : a huge circular block of dark 
 porphyry, disinterred in 1790 in the great square of Mexico, 
 which discloses evidence of progress in astronomical science 
 altogether wonderful in a people among whom civilisation 
 was in other respects so partially developed. The Mexicans 
 had a solar year of 365 days divided into eighteen months 
 of twenty days each, with the five complementary days 
 added to the last. The discrepancy between the actual 
 time of the sun's annual path through the heavens and 
 their imperfect year, was regulated by the intercalation of 
 thirteen days at the end of every fifty-second year. Accord- 
 ing to Gama, who diff'ers from Humboldt on this point, the 
 civil day was divided into sixteen parts ; and he conceives 
 the Calendar to have been constructed as a vertical sun- 
 dial. Mexican drawings also indicate that the Aztecs were 
 acquainted with the cause of eclipses. But beyond this our 
 means of ascertaining the extent of their astronomical know- 
 ledge fail ; while there is proof that their inquiries were 
 zealously directed to the more favoured speculations of the 
 astrologer, which have supplanted true science in all primi- 
 tive stages of society. Mr. Stephens drew attention to 
 
 1 ^jiaAwac, p. 147. 
 
XIV.] 
 
 THE CALENDAR STONE. 
 
 333 
 
 points of correspond'^nce between tlie central device on the 
 Calendar Stone, and a mask, with widely expanded eyes 
 and tongue hanging out, prominent in the curious sacrificial 
 scene sculptured on the Casa de Piedra at Palenque. But 
 the correspondence amounts "to little more than this, that 
 each is a gigantic mask with protruding tongue. That of 
 the Calendar Stone is engraved here from a cast brought 
 home by Mr. Bullock, and now in the Collection of the 
 
 Fia. 74.— Mask, Mexican Calondar Stone. 
 
 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The statues dug up 
 along with it on the site of the great teocalli of Mexico, 
 were buried in the court of the University, to place tliem 
 beyond reach of the idolatrous rites which the Indians 
 were inclined to pay to them. At the solicitation of Mr. 
 Bullock they were again disinterred, to admit of his obtain- 
 ing casts ; and he furnishes this interesting account of the 
 sensation excited by the restoration to light of the largest 
 and most celebrated of the Mexican deities : — " During the 
 
334 
 
 MEXICAN DEITIES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 time it was exposed, the court of the University was crowded 
 with people, most of whom expressed the most decided 
 anger and contempt. Not so, however, all the Indians. 
 I attentively marked their countenances. Not a smile 
 escaped them, or even a word. All was silence and atten- 
 tion. In reply to a joke of one of the students, an old 
 Indian remarked, * It is very true we have three very good 
 Spanish gods, but we might still have been allowed to keep 
 a few of those of our ancestors !' And I was informed that 
 chaplets of flowers had been placed on the figure by natives 
 who had stolen thither unseen in the evening."^ 
 
 The figure which thus reawakened patriotic sympathies 
 in the descendants of Montezuma's subjects is a rude dis- 
 
 Fio. 76.— Tioul nieroglyphto Vase. 
 
 proportioned idol, strikingly contrasting with the elaborate 
 hieroglyphical devices and well-proportioned figures and 
 decorations which accompany the grotesque mask in the 
 Casa de Piedra of Palenque. In the latter, the principal 
 human figures present the remarkable profile of the ancient 
 Central American race, as shown on a vase dug up among 
 the ruins of Ticul (Fig. 75), with the prominent nose, 
 retreating forehead and chin, and protruding under-lip, so 
 
 ^ Biillook'B^S'w if (m</^m ilfextco, p. 111. ^^ 
 
XIV.] 
 
 TOLTEC CIVILISATION. 
 
 335 
 
 essentially different from the features either of the Mexicans 
 or northern Indians. The subject race on whom they tread 
 are characterised by a diverse profile, with overhanging brows, 
 a Roman nose, and a well-defined chin ; while their costume 
 is equally indicative of a different origin. 
 
 But the sculpture of the Mexican Calendar Stone em- 
 bodies evidence of an amount of knowledge and skill not 
 less interesting for us than the mysterious hieroglyphics of 
 the Palenque tablets ; and was believed by Humboldt to 
 indicate unmistakable relations to the ancient science of 
 south-eastern Asia. Mr. Stephens has printed a curious 
 exposition of the chronology of Yucatan, derived from 
 native sources by Don Juan Pio Perez. From the corre- 
 spondence of their mode of computing time with that 
 adopted by the Mexicans, he assumes that it probably 
 originated with them ; but at the same time he remarks 
 that the inhabitants of Mayapan, as the Peninsula was 
 called at the period of Spanish invasion, divided time by 
 calculating it almost in the same manner as their ancestors 
 the Toltecs, differing only in the particular arrangement of 
 their great cycles. Their year commenced on the 16th of 
 July, an error of only forty-eight hours in advance of the 
 precise day in which the sun returns there to the zenith, on 
 his way to the south, and sufficiently near for astronomers 
 who had to make their observations with the naked eye.: 
 Their calendar thus presents evidence of native and local 
 origin. According to Humboldt, the Mexican year began 
 in the corresponding winter half of the year, ranging from 
 the 9th to the 28th of January ; but Clavigero places its 
 commencement from the 14th to the 26th of February. 
 If my ideas as to a marked inferiority in the terracottas 
 ^ and sculptures of the Mexicans, and the very questionable 
 proofs of their architectural achievements, are correct, they 
 ~ tend to confiim the inference, that not to the Aztecs, but to 
 thoir more civilised Toltec predecessors, must be ascribed 
 that remarkable astronomical knowledge in the arrange- 
 
 i; ■:,;'<:■■ 
 
 n 
 
336 
 
 RACE ELEMENTS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 ment of their calendar, which exhibits a precision in the 
 adjustment of civil to solar time, such as only a few of the 
 most civilised nations of the Old World had attained to at 
 that date. But, so far as an indigenous American civilisa- 
 tion is concerned, it mattei-s little whether it be ascribed to 
 Toltec or Aztec origin. Of its existence no doubt can be 
 entertained ; and there is little more room for questioning, 
 that among races who had carried civilisation so far, there 
 existed the capacity for its further development, indepen- 
 dently of all borrowed aid. The fierce Dane and Norman 
 seemed to offer equally little promise of intellectual progress 
 in their first encroachments on the insular Saxon. But out 
 of such elements sprung the race which outstripped the 
 Spaniard in making of the land of Columbus a New World ; 
 and, left to its own natural progress, the valley of Anahuac, 
 with its mingling races, might have proved a source of 
 intellectual life to the whole continent. But modern 
 Mexico has displaced the ancient capital of Montezuma ; 
 cathedral, convents, and churches, have usurped the sites of 
 Aztec teocallis ; its canals have disappeared, and its famous 
 causeways are no longer laved by the waters of the Tezcucan 
 Lake. It is even denied by those who have personally 
 surveyed the site, that the waters of the lake can ever have 
 overflowed the marshes around the modern capital, or stood 
 at a much nearer point to it than they do at present.^ 
 Fresh doubts seem to accumulate around its mythic story. 
 The ruined masonry of its vanished palaces and temples may 
 be assumed to have been all swallowed up in the edifices 
 which combine to make of the modern capital so striking 
 an object, amid the strange scenery of icJG elevated tropical 
 valley. But Mexico was not the only cifA'-, nor even the 
 only great capital, of the valley. 
 
 In attempting to trace back the history of the remarkable 
 population found in occupation of the Mexican territory 
 when first invaded by the Spaniards, we learn, by means 
 
 * Topographical View of the Valley, Wilson's Nw) History of Mexico, p. 452. 
 
XIV.] 
 
 THE TOLTEC CAPITAL. 
 
 %l% 
 
 )ical 
 the 
 
 lable 
 tory 
 
 of various sources of information already referred to, but 
 chiefly on the authority of Ixtlilxochitl's professed interpre- 
 tations of picture-writings, no longer in existence ; and of 
 traditions of old men, concerning events reaching back 
 from seven or eight, even to twelve centuries before their 
 own time : that the Toltecs, advancing from some un- 
 known region of the north, entered the territory of Anahuac, 
 " probably before the close of the seventh century." They 
 were, according to their historian, already skilled in agri- 
 culture and the mechanical arts, familiar with metallurgy, 
 and endowed with all the knowledge and experience out of 
 which grew the civilisation of Anahuac in later ages. In 
 the time of the Conquest, extensive ruins are said to have 
 indicated the site of their ancient capital of Tula, to the 
 north of the Mexican valley. The tradition of such ruined 
 cities adds confirmation to the inferences derived from those 
 more recently explored in regions to the south ; and still 
 the name of Toltec in New Spain is synonymous with 
 architect : the mythic designation of a shadowy race, such 
 as glances fitfully across the first chapters of legendary 
 history among the most ancient nations of Europe. But 
 subsequent to those Pelasgi of the New World, there fol- 
 lowed from unknown regions of the north the Chichimecas, 
 the Tepanecs, the Acolhuans or Tezcucans, the Aztecs or 
 Mexicans, and other inferior tribes ; so that, as we approach 
 a more definite period of history, we learn of a league be- 
 tween the States of Mexico and Tezcuco and the kingdom 
 of Tlacopan, under which the Aztec capital grew into the 
 marvellous city of temples and palaces described by Cortes 
 and his followers. But Don Fernando de Alva claimed 
 descent on his mother's side from the Imperial race of Tez- 
 cuco ; and he has not failed to preserve, or to create the 
 memorials of the glory of that imperial city of the laguna. 
 It contained upwards of four hundred stately edifices for 
 the nobles. The magnificent palace of the Tezcucan 
 emperor " extended from east to west, twelve hundred and 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
 ft'.,. 
 
 ■';t,i :.■■ 
 
 m 
 
 ■iijM: 
 
33^ 
 
 TEZCUCAN PALACES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 thirty-four yards, and, from noi-th to south, nine hundred 
 and seventy eight. It was encompassed by a wall of un- 
 burnt bricks and cement, six feet wide and nine high for 
 one-half of the circumference, and fifteen feet high for the 
 other half. Within this enclosure were two courts. The 
 outer one was used as the great market-place of the city, 
 and continued to be so until long after the Conquest. The 
 interior court was surrounded by the council-chambers and 
 halls of justice. There were also accommodation there for 
 foreign ambassadors ; and a spacious saloon, with apart- 
 ments opening into it, for men of science and poets, who 
 pursued their studies in this retreat, or met together to hold 
 converse under its marble porticoes."^ In this style the 
 native historian describes the glory of ancient Tezcuco. A 
 lordly pile, provided for the fitting accommodation of the 
 sovereign of Mexico and Tlacopan, contained three hun- 
 dred ap^. . tments, including some fifty yards square. Solid 
 materitds of stone and marble were lil)erally employed both 
 on this and on the apartments of the royal harem, the walls 
 of which were incrusted with alabasters and richly tinted 
 stucco, or hung with gorgeous ta[)estries of variegated 
 feather- work. Some two leagues distant, at Tezcotzinco, 
 was the favourite residence of the sovereign ; on a hill, 
 *'laid out in terraces, or hanging gardens, having a flight 
 of five hundred and twenty steps, many of them hewn in 
 the natural porphyry. In the garden on the summit was a 
 reservoir of water, fed by an aqueduct carried over hill and 
 valley for several miles on huge buttresses of masonry. A 
 large rock stood in the midst of this basin, sculptured with 
 hieroglyphics representing the years of Nezahualcoyotl'H 
 reign, and his principal achievements in each. On a lower 
 level were three other reservoirs, in each of which stood a 
 marble statue of a woman, emblematic of the three estatos 
 of the empire. Another tank contained a wingc lion," — 
 but here the modern historian grows incredulou8, and ap- 
 
 ■m.. 
 
 ^ Prcscott's Cutiqticst of Mexico, B. i. chap. vi. 
 
XI V.J 
 
 THEIR MODERN VESTIGES. 
 
 s 
 
 I;, SI 
 
 339 
 
 peiids a ^?) before proceeding in accordance with his author- 
 ities to add — "cut out of the sohd rock, bearing in his 
 mouth the portrait of the emperor." 
 
 The authority for all this wrote in tho beginning of the 
 seventeenth century ; but his narrative receives Sf me confir- 
 mation from architectural remains still visible on the hill of 
 Tezcotziuco. They are referred to by Latrobe and Bullock 
 as relics of an era greatly more remote than that of 
 Aztec civilisation ; and more recently Mr. Tylor describes 
 the hill of Tezcotziuco as terraced, and traversed by numer- 
 ous roads and flights of steps cut in the rock. It is con- 
 nected with another hill by an aqueduct of immense size 
 constructed with ])locks of porphyry, and with its channel 
 lined with a hard stucco, still very perfect. Baths also 
 remain, cut out of the solid rock ; and on the summit of 
 the hill, overlooking the ancient city, sculptured blocks of 
 stone furnish evidence that the tales of architectural magni- 
 ficence are not wholly fabulous. Mr. Christy, his travelling 
 companion, made excavations in the neighbouring mouii-ls, 
 and was rewarded by the discovery of some fine idols of 
 hard stone, and *' an infinitude of pottery and small objects." 
 But the spirit of Spanish romance still asserts its influence. 
 Bullock, in his Six Months in Mexico, describes the remains 
 of the royal fountain of Tezcotziuco as a " beautiful basin, 
 twelve feet long by eight wide, having a well fiv^e feet by 
 four deep in the centre ; " while Latrobe, in his Rambles in 
 Mexico, reduces the dimensions of the royal bath to " pern- 
 haps two feet and a half in diameter, not large enough for 
 any monarch bigger than Oberon to take a duck in ! " 
 
 Of the great pyramid or teocalli of Huitzilopotchtli in old 
 Mexico, no vestige now reraaius, unless such as is reputed 
 to lie buried under the foundations of the cathedral which 
 occupies its site. But time and fate have dealt moro 
 tenderly with the scarcely less famous pyramid of Cholula, 
 The ancient city of that name, when first seen by Coites, 
 waa said to include, within and without its walls, about -- 
 
 « ^. 
 
 if,. 
 
MO 
 
 QUETZALCOATL. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 liii'M 
 
 forty thousand houses, or according to ordinary rules of 
 computation, two hundred thousand inhabitants. But 
 whatever its ancient population may have been, while the 
 fruits of Spanish conquest have advanced it to the rank of 
 capital of the republic of Cholula, they have left only sixteen 
 thousand as the number of its occupants. Still, Cholula was 
 unquestionably one of the most famous of the cities of the 
 New World : a sacred Mecca for the pilgrims of Anahuac. 
 
 Quetzalcoatl, the milder god of the Aztec pantheon, 
 whose worship was performed by offerings of fruits and 
 flowers in their season, was venerated as the divine teacher 
 of the arts of peace. His reign on earth was the golden age 
 of Anahuac, when its people learned fix)m him agriculture, 
 metallurgy, and the art of government. But their bene- 
 factor, according to the tradition handed down to the 
 Aztecs by an elder people whom they had superseded, 
 incurred the wrath of another of the gods. As he passed 
 on his way to abandon the land to the rule of the terrible 
 Huitzilopotchtli, he paused at the city of Cholula; and 
 while he tarried there, the great teocalli was reared and 
 dedicated to his worship. But the benevolent deity could 
 not remain within reach of the avenger. After spending 
 twenty years among them, teaching the people the arts of 
 civilisation, he proceeded onward till he reached the ocean ; 
 and there embarking in a vessel, made of serpents' skins, 
 his followers watched his retreating bark on its way to the 
 sacred isle of Tlapallan. But the tradition lived on among 
 the Mexicans that the bark of the good deity would revisit 
 their shores ; and this fondly cherished belief materially 
 contributed to the success of the Spaniards, when their 
 huge-winged ships bore the beings of another world to the 
 mainland of the Mexican Gulf. The legend bears all the 
 marks of anciently derived hero-worship, in which love for 
 a lost benefactor framed for itself a deified embodiment of 
 his virtues. This, however, is important to note, that Aztec 
 traditions assigned the pyramid of Cholula to an older race 
 
 11 
 
[chap. 
 
 les of 
 But 
 Ic the 
 mk of 
 sixteen 
 ila was 
 of tlic 
 huac. 
 ithcon, 
 its and 
 teacher 
 len age 
 culture, 
 x bcne- 
 to the 
 srsedecl, 
 passed 
 terrible 
 a; and 
 red and 
 y could 
 pending 
 J arts of 
 } ocean ; 
 skins, 
 to the 
 among 
 revisit 
 .terially 
 en their 
 d to the 
 all the 
 love for 
 iment of 
 at Aztec 
 Ider race 
 
 XIV.] 
 
 THE PYRAMID OF CHOL ULA. 
 
 341 
 
 y 
 
 and era than their own. It was there when they entered 
 the plateau ; and the arts of the divine metallurgist were 
 taught, not to them but to the Toltecs, whom they super- 
 seded. Nevertheless, the deity shared in their worship ; 
 his image occupied a shrine on the summit of the 
 pyramid of Cholula when the Spaniards first visited the 
 holy city ; and the undying flame flung its radiance far 
 into the night, to keep alive the memory of the good deity 
 who was one day to return and restore the golden age. 
 
 The present appearance of the great teocalli very partially 
 justifies the reference made by Prescott to it as "that tre- 
 mendous mound on which the traveller still gazes with 
 admiration as the most colossal fabric in New Spain, rival- 
 ling in dimensions, and somewhat resembling in form, the 
 pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt." If it ever was a 
 terraced pyramid, time and the elements have nearly cfijiced 
 the traces of its original outline. On the authority of 
 Humboldt, it is described as a pyramidal mound of stone 
 and earth, deeply incrusted with alternate strata of brick 
 and clay, which " had the form of the Mexican teocallis, 
 that of a truncated pyramid facing with its four sides the 
 cardinal points, and divided by the same number of ter- 
 races." But the adobe of the Mexican, which is frequently 
 styled brick, is nothing more than a mass of unbaked clay, 
 or even mud. If such, therefore, is the supposed brick 
 which alternated with the other materials of the mound, we 
 can the more readily reconcile the seeming contradictions of 
 observers. One of the latest thus describes the impression 
 produced on his mind : " Right before me, as I rode along, 
 was a mass of trees, of evergreen foliage, presenting indis- 
 tinctly the outline of a pyramid, which ran up to the 
 height of about two hundred feet, and was crowned by an 
 old stone church, and surmounted by a tall steeple. It 
 was the most attractive object in the plain ; it had such a 
 
 It 
 attractiveness had it been the stiff' 
 
 hi 
 
 .T 
 f 
 
 look of uncultivated nature in the midst of grain fields. 
 
342 
 
 THE SACRED CITY. • 
 
 [chap. 
 
 and clumsy thing which the picture represents it to be." It 
 is accordingly described by Mr. R A. Wilson, in his Mexico 
 and its Religion, as no more than " the finest Indian monnd 
 on this continent," rising to a height of about two hundred 
 feet, and crowned by an old stone church. But careful 
 examination satisfied Mr. Tylor that it still retains the 
 traces of a terraced teocalli. The church on its summit, 
 dedicated to Our Lady de los Remedios, is served by a priest 
 of the blood of the Cholulans ; and the masonry and architec- 
 tural skill which it displays have no doubt somewhat to do 
 with their absence elsewhere ; for if the clergy found the 
 teocalli cased like the pyramidal terraces of Central America, 
 with cut stone steps and facings, there can be little doubt 
 thc} 'ould go no furtlier for a quarry for their intended 
 church. 
 
 - To the north of the Mexicc.i valley ancient ruins arrest 
 the ga^e of the traveller, onward even to California. On 
 the Kio Colorado and its tributaries, ruins of great extent, 
 surveyed by recent exploring parties, are described as built 
 with large stones, nicely wrought, and accurately squared. 
 But nothing in their style of architecture suggests a com- 
 mon origin with the ruins of Mexico or Central America. 
 They are large and plain structures, with massive walls, 
 evidently built for defence, and with no tracers of the orna- 
 mentation which abounds on the ruins of Yucatan. The 
 Moqui Indians, the supposed remnant of the ancient 
 builders, still construct their dwellings of stone with con- 
 siderable art and skil' They are a gentle and intelligent 
 race, small of stature, with fine black hair; and differ 
 essentially from the Indians of the North-west Their 
 villages arc included in one common stone structure, gene- 
 rally of a quadrangular form, witii solid, unpierced walls 
 externally, and accessible only by means of a ladder. These 
 hive-like colonies are usually placed, for further defence, on 
 the summits of the lofty plateaus, which in the region of 
 New Mexico are detached by the broad canons with which 
 
 
[chap. 
 
 be." It 
 Mexico 
 
 mound 
 mndred 
 
 careful 
 lins the 
 mmmit, 
 a priest 
 irchitec- 
 [it to do 
 and the 
 \merica, 
 le doubt 
 intended 
 
 IS arrest 
 lia. On 
 j extent, 
 as built 
 squared. 
 8 a com- 
 ^mcrica. 
 ^e walls, 
 he orna- 
 Hn. The 
 ancient 
 ith con- 
 telligcnt 
 d differ 
 Their 
 re, gene- 
 ed wallH 
 I. These 
 once, on 
 fegion of 
 th whicJi 
 
 XIV.] 
 
 TI/£ MOQUI INDIANS. 
 
 343 
 
 that remarkable region is intersected. By such means this 
 ingenious people seek protection from the wild tribes with 
 whicn they are surrounded. Thus permanently settled, 
 while exposed to the assaults of marauders, the Moquis 
 cultivate the soil, raise corn, beans, cotton, and more re- 
 cently vegetal)les derived from intercourse with the Mexi- 
 <!ans. They have also their flocks of sheep and goats ; and 
 weave their dyed wools into a variety of substantial and 
 handsome dresses. But only a small remnant now survives, 
 occupying seven villages on the range of the Rio del Norte.* 
 
 Tnioughout New California ruined structures of stone, 
 and sometimes of clay abound. The Casas grandes, as 
 they are called, appear to have been defensive structures 
 like the Moqui villages. Captain Johnston describes one, 
 called the Casa de Montezuma, on the river Gila, which 
 nieasured fifty feet by forty, jind had been four storeys 
 high. It is indeed worthy of note that while we find 
 throughout the continent, from the Rocky Mountains to 
 the Atlantic, scarcely a vestige of ante-CoUunbian stone 
 archi'^ecture : traces of it increase upon uh with every new 
 exploration of the country that lies between the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Pacific, and merges towards the south 
 into the seats of ancient native civilisation und mature<J 
 architectural skill. 
 
 But the Southern Continent had also its seat of a re- 
 markable native civilisation ; whi(;h, like that of Mexico, 
 derived some of its most striking cliaractt-ri.stics from tlio 
 [>hysical aspects of the country in wliich it originated. The 
 peculiar natural advantages of Peru resulted from tliti 
 settlement of a people on the lofty lAuUnMn of tlie Andes, 
 but within the tropics, where at each succesBive elevation i\ 
 
 * Dr. iMItnin spt-aks of the Moquis an n itooplo tluifc " no living M'ritor scorns 
 to havo Keen." — Vnru'ilea of Afan, p. 394, lint the ftbovo infoi ination oomniiijiu- 
 catod to rtio by I'rofoHsnr Newberry, is the resnlt of liia own ](oraonal observa- 
 tions. Ho sbowod mo also siicciincns of thoir wovon iln'sspH, tnanifoflting 
 uonsiderablv skiil, and uxhibtting grc-it tr.sto in tho anangt'inunt of thoir bright 
 colours. They have recuuUy been greatly luducud by Hiiiall-|)ox. 
 
 
•344 
 
 THE HOLY CITY OF PERU. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 
 different climate was secured. Such products as the mer- 
 cantile navies of Northern Europe gather from many dis- 
 tant shores, were there brought within the compass of an 
 industrious population : who fed their flocks on the cold 
 crests of the sierra ; cultivated their gardens and orchards 
 on its higher plateaus ; and gathered the luxuriant products 
 of the tropics from the country that for them lay, for the 
 most part, beneath the clouds, and spread away from the 
 lowest slopes of the Andes to the neighbouring shores of 
 the Pacific. The character of the people, and the nature of 
 the civilisation of this remarkable country, presented many 
 striking contrasts to the customs and institutions of the 
 Mexicans, and they have generally been assumed as of 
 totally independent origin. 
 
 Peru has her historic traditions, no less than Mexico ; 
 and her native historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant, 
 through his mother, from the royal line of the Incas : who 
 plays for them the part which Fernando de Alva did for 
 his Tezcucan ancestry. Seen through such a medium, the 
 traditions of the Inca race expand into gorgeous pages of 
 romance ; and the institutions of European chivalry and 
 medieval polity are grafted on the strange usages of an 
 Indian nation, remarkable for its own well- matured com- 
 monwealth, and unique phases of native-born civilisation. 
 Sabaism constituted the essential element of Peruvian 
 religious faith, and gave form and colour to the national 
 rites and traditions. Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco, 
 their mythic instructors in the arts of agriculture, weaving, 
 and spinning, were the Children of the Sun ; their high 
 religious festivals were determined by the solstices and 
 equinoxes ; and Quito, the holy city, which lay immediately 
 under the Equator, had within it the pillar of the sun, 
 where its vertictd rays threw no shadow at noon, and they 
 believed the god of light to seat himself in full effulgence 
 in his temple. The sacred pillar stood in the centre of a 
 circle described within the court of the great temple, tra- 
 
XIV.] 
 
 WORSHIP OF THE SUN. 
 
 345 
 
 fiivirig, 
 
 high 
 
 and 
 
 versed by a diameter drawn from east to west, by means of 
 which the period of the equinoxes was determined ; and 
 both then, and at the solstices, the pillar was hung with 
 garlands, and offerings of fruit and flowers were made to 
 the divine luminary and parent of mankind. The title of 
 the sovereign Inca was the Child of the Sun ; and the 
 territory of the empire was divided into three portions, of 
 which one, constituting the lands of the Sun, maintained 
 the costly ceremonial of public worship, with the temples 
 and their numerous priests and vestal virgins. The national 
 traditions pointed to the Valley of Cuzco as the original 
 seat of native civilisation. There their mythic Manco 
 Capac founded the city of that name ; on the high lands 
 around it a number of columns were reared which served 
 for taking azimuths, and by measuring their shadows the 
 precise time of the solstices were determined. 
 
 Besides the divine honours paid to the sun, the Peruvians 
 worshipped the host of heaven, and dedicated temples to 
 the thunder and lightning, and to the rainbow, as the 
 w: thful and benign messengers of the supreme solar deity. 
 It might naturally be anticipated that a nation thus devoted 
 to astronomical observations, and maintaining a sacred 
 caste exclusively for watching solar and stellar phenomena, 
 would have attained to considerable knowledge in that 
 branch of science. Apparently, however, the facilities 
 which their equatorial position afforded for determining the 
 few indispensable periods in their calendar, removed the 
 stimulus to further progress ; and not only do wc find them 
 surpassed in this respect by the Muyscns, occupying a part 
 of the same great southern plateau, wlio regulated their 
 calendar on a system presenting considenU)lo points of 
 resemblance to that of the Aztecs ; but they remained to 
 the last in ignorance of the ti'ue causes of eclipses, and 
 regarded such phenomena with the same superstitious and 
 apprehensive wond(3r as has affected tlie untutored savage 
 mind in all ages. One historian, indeed, aflirnis that they 
 
 
346 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL KNO WLEDGE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 iffi; 
 
 recognised the actual length of the solar year, and regulated 
 their chronology by a series of cycles of decades of years, 
 centuries, and decades of centuries, the last of which consti- 
 tuted the grand cycle or great year of the sun.^ This is only 
 confuted by a reference to the silence of earlier authorities, 
 and the absence of all evidence on the subject ; and may 
 serve to remind us how partial is the knowledge we pos-^ 
 sess of the intellectual development of this singularly interest- 
 ing people, among whom science was essentially esoteric. . 
 Prescott seelcs to account for the very imperfect nature 
 of the astronomical science of Peru, by the fact, that the 
 Peruvian priesthood were drawn exclusively from tlie body 
 of the Incas : a privileged order of nobility who claimed 
 divine origin, and were the less tempted to seek in superior 
 learning the exclusive rights of an intellectual aristocracy. 
 But other reasons help to explain this singular intellectual 
 condition of a nation, which had in so many other directions 
 made remarkable progress in civilisation. The very fact that 
 astronomy constituted, as it were, the national religion, 
 placed it beyond the reach of scientific speculation, among 
 a people with whom blasphemy against the sun, and male- 
 diction of the Inca, were alike punislied with death. 'J'he 
 impediments to Galileo's astronomical discoveiies were 
 trifling compared with those which must have beset the 
 presumptuous Inca priest who ventured to deny the diurnal 
 revolution of the sun round the earth ; or to explain, by 
 the simple interposition of the moon between themselves 
 and the sun, the mysterious and malign infirmities with 
 which it constituted a part of the national crec ' to believe 
 their supreme deity was aftiicted during a solar eclipse. 
 But another cause also tended to retard the progress of tlic 
 Peruvians in the intelligent solution of astronomical phe- 
 nomena. Among the ancient Egyptiaub we find the division 
 of the year determined by th< ^luinges of the NiK' ; and 
 their year regulated by pji,^' vi.^.tio *. istronomicai science, 
 
 5 M»afce«i»o'8 ATew. AutiqMt Af^ ' >. t. "■. - oited by Pmnicott. 
 
[chap. 
 
 xiv] 
 
 AGRICULTURE, 
 
 347 
 
 minutely interwoven with their sacred and civil institutions. 
 But the plienomena of the seasons, which have fostered with 
 every other civilised nation the accurate observation of the 
 astronomical divisions of time, and the determination of 
 the recurring festivals dependent on seed-time and harvest, 
 were almost inoperative, where, among a people specially 
 devoted to agriculture, each season and every temperature 
 could be commanded by a mere change of elevation under 
 the vertical sun of the equator. 
 
 The Peruvians, however, must be tried by their own 
 standards of excellence. Manco Capac, their mythic 
 civiliser, was no war-god, like the Mexitli of the ferocious 
 Aztecs. Agriculture was the special art introduced by him; 
 and husbandry was pursued among them on principles 
 which modern science has only recently fully developed in 
 Europe. There alone, in all the New World, the plough 
 was in use ; and the Inca himself, on one of the great 
 annual festivals, consecrated the labours of the husbandman 
 by turning up the earth with a golden ploughshare. Arti- 
 ficial irrigation was carried out on a gigantic scale by means 
 of aqueducts and tunnels of great extent, the ruins of which 
 still attest the eiighioering skill of their constructors. The 
 "virtues of guano, which are now so well appreciated by 
 the agriculturists of Europe, were familiar to the Peruvian 
 farmer ; and as the country of the Incas ijicluded, at its 
 various levels, nearly all varieties of climate and production, 
 from the cocoa and palm that fringed the borders of the 
 Pacific, to the pasture of their mountain flocks on the verge 
 of the high regions of perpetual snow : a systematic succes- 
 sion of public fairs, regulated, like all else, by the supremo 
 government, afforded abundant opportunities for the inter- 
 change of their diverse commodities. 
 
 Such a <'.ountry, if any, could dispense with commerce, 
 and att lin to considerable advancement without a represen- 
 tative currency or circulating medium. Gold, which waa 
 80 abundant, served only for barbaric pomp and dccoratioUi 
 
348 
 
 THE LLAMA. 
 
 [chAPi 
 
 ;•-«■ il, 
 
 ■w 
 
 Silver was accessible in su i quantities, that Pizarro found 
 in it a substitute for iron to dhoe the horses of his cavalry. 
 Copper and tin in like manner abounded in the mountains ; 
 and the Peruvians had learned to alloy the copper both with 
 tin and silver, for greater utility in its application to the 
 useful arts. Bartholomew Euiz, it will be remembered, 
 found on board the haha first met by him off the Peruvian 
 coast, a pair of balances for weighing the precious metals ; 
 and the repeated discovery of well-adjusted silver balances 
 in tombs of the Incas, confirms the evidence that they made 
 use of weights in determining the value of their com- 
 modities. The Peruvians were thus in possession of a mode 
 of exchange, which, for their purposes, was superior to that 
 of the currency of the Mexicans, in the absence of any such 
 means of asc rtaining the exact apportionment of commo- 
 dities produced for sale. 
 
 Progress in agriculture was accompanied by a correspond- 
 ing development of the resources of a pastoral people. Vast 
 flocks of sheep ranged the mountain pastures of the Andes, 
 under the guidance of native shepherds ; while the Peru- 
 vians alone, of all the races of the New World, had attained 
 to that important stage in civilisation which precedes the 
 employment of machinery, by their use of the lower animals 
 in economising human labour. The llama, trained as a 
 beast of burden, carried its light load along the steep paths 
 of the Cordilleras, or on the great highways of Peru. 
 
 As the mythic Manco Capac was the instructor of the 
 nation in agriculture, so also the divine daughter of the Sun 
 introduced the arts of weaving and spinning. Such tradi- 
 tions serve at least to indicate the favourite directions of 
 the national taste and skill, which were displayed in tho 
 irumufacturo of a variety of woollen articles of ingeniouc 
 patterns and tlie utmost delicacy of texture. Numerous 
 examples of the woven textures of the Peruvians have 
 been recovered from their ancient graves at Atacama and 
 elsewhoro ; though it cannot be assumed that in these we 
 
XIV.] 
 
 WOVEN TEXTURES. 
 
 349 
 
 have specimens of the rare and costly fabrics which excited 
 the wondering admiration of the early Spaniards. In the 
 arid soil and tropical climate of the great desert of Atacama, 
 articles which prove the most perishable in northern lati- 
 tudes are found, after the lapse of centuries, in perfect pre- 
 servation. Of these I had an opportunity of examining a 
 collection recovered by Mr. J. H. Blake from ancient huacas 
 explored by him, and now preserved in his cabinet at 
 Boston. They include specimens of cloth, wrought in dyed 
 woollen thread, and sewed in regular and ornamental de- 
 signs. Each piece is woven of the exact size which was 
 required for the purpose in view, and some of them furnish 
 proofs of ingenious skill in the art of weaving. The threads 
 consist of two or more strands of dyed llama-wool twisted 
 together ; and elaborate pntterns are woven into a noffc juhI 
 delicate web. The accompanying figure, though grotesque, 
 is a good specimen of a complicated feat achieved in dyed 
 woollen threads on the ancient Peruvian loom. It was 
 found in a grave at Atacama, along with many other relics 
 
 described in a subsequent chapter, Mr. 
 Blake remarks, in reference to the dis- 
 coveries of this class which rewarded his 
 researches : — " In forming an opinion of 
 the degree of skill displayed in the arts 
 of spinning and weaving, by th(\sc speci- 
 mens, it should be bi^rne in mind that the 
 implementH in use wovt^ of the simplest 
 contrivance. The only ones \\\\\A\ havi^ 
 been discovcivd aiv simple di^talVn ; and 
 auiong the articles obtaiuod from tho 
 Ataca\ut\ giNivea woi^o several formed of 
 \^^K-\i)A and atone, such as are still in use 
 Ho. nw-muvirtu W.K jii^^oug the luvliana of Peru at the proaowli 
 day. Weaving on tho loom has not been inti*od\\\HMl among 
 then\, Tho warp ia secured by staktv^ dviveu ii\to the 
 gi\)uud, and the filliug-in ia iusevtcd by tho slow pvoeoia ut' 
 
 
 ■S\M\ 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
■ J^^^fw""' 
 
 U4 
 
 350 
 
 SCIENCE AND ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 i! H 
 
 passing it by hand over and under each thread alternately." 
 It would be a grave error, however, to assume that we 
 possess in such relics, recovered from the ordinary graves 
 formed in the loose sand of the desert, the highest achieve- 
 ments of Peruvian skill. On the contrary, regarding them, 
 as we must, as fair specimens of the common woollen tissues 
 of the country, they confirm the probability that the costly 
 hangings, and beautifully wrought robes of the Inca and 
 his nobles, fully justified the admiration with which they 
 are referred to by Spanish writers of the sixteenth century. 
 Marvellous specimens of ceramic art are also noted among 
 the manufactures ascribed to the Peruvians before the con- 
 quest, surpassing anything found in the common cemeteries 
 of the race ; but the proofs which exist of the ingenuity ex- 
 pended by the ancient potter on utensils in daily use, render 
 probable the accounts of such rare chefd'aiuvres executed by 
 their cunningoHt work men for \\w imperial stM'vire. So also 
 we roi\d of animals and plantn wrought with wonderful 
 delicacy, in gold and silver ; imd scuttered vvKIi proi'iiso 
 magnificence about the apartments of Ihe I'eriiviiiii nobles. 
 Such s[»ecimens of goldsmiths* work no longer survive ; \)\\i 
 still the huacas of the ancient race are ransacked for go|de|| 
 ornaments, which prove consiib^rable niehillurglc skj)|, rtjlft 
 leave no room zo doubt that gold iihil iijlvnj' wiilM |||o|lh1nii 
 and grav'SL into many ingenious foiina. Science ana arj; 
 kad indeed maue wonderful advanccH fili|ii|||| |)dH |u||)/ir^ 
 
 abie people : though w i laem, as with the Clilncisn, they 
 
 ipae more frequently expended in the gratification of a 
 CTwring for display, than in realising triunipliM of t nil eh 
 piafcctical value. Nevertheless, Peruvian civilisation had 
 wrought out for isself many eJementB of progresj iMliijibtd 
 to its native soiL Its a^^rcaiomie^ alienee adm+f8, Inoeed, 
 of no comparison witi that of Mexico ; 2nd in lieu of t ho 
 artier pictiBK^ writing of the Mexicans, it employed tho 
 qnipiis, an artifickl system of mnemonics not greatly 
 siq)erior to tie Red Indian wasipum, to which it bears 
 
■ 
 
 XIV.] 
 
 NATIVE INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 351 
 
 ira 
 
 considerable resemblance. In tliis it contrasts with the 
 matured hieroglyphical inscriptions of Central America and 
 Yucatan, which preserve evidences of progress in advance 
 of the highest civilisation of the Aztecs and the Incas, and 
 indeed of all but the most civilised nations of ancient or 
 modern centuries. But this higher phase of intellectual 
 development must be reserved for consideration in its rela- 
 tions to the psychology of the whole continent. 
 
 The remarkable system of national polity doubtless 
 originated in part from the docile nature still manifested by 
 the descendants of the Peruvian people ; and, when viewed 
 in this connection, it fir lushes some key to the peculiar 
 characteristics of their civilisation. Their government was 
 a sacerdotal sovereignty, with an hereditary aristocracy, and 
 a system of castes more absolute seemingly than that of 
 tlie Egyptians or Hindus. Something of the partial and 
 unprogressive development of the Chinese mingled in the 
 ancient Peruvians along with numerous other traits of 
 resemblance to that singular people. Unlike the Mexicans, 
 we see in their whole polity, arts, and social life, institutions 
 of indiirenous growth, it wouhl be difficult to limit the 
 centurierf during which such a people may have handed on 
 i^{\\\\ goOBfilMop fco generation tlio slowly brightening torch. 
 ^\\\^\t owh [ii\i\\{\i)m, pl-eservefl with the help of (pjipus and 
 national lialj/njflj ^\^ yffj|[je|ess \)\\ this point, fiut their 
 institutions reveal some ietii((/|i//|/l/» ^jyidoaees of a people 
 )>/'M/»M»vJ/ig nuiiiy tniits of social infn/icy, alongside of su/'ii 
 mailllfr/l \\\\^ \\m (|/f)/|ts OS could only grow up together 
 nround the uudiwturhc*! gl7iv^«3 O^uniiy ge//f*/7j|/o/if(. O/fiiif- 
 lllp \\i ftlljls and flowers ia^k liio pJ/i/'M of i\\\\ iilfii}(if 
 liiinuin sacrifices of Aisttjo wofshipj hut tlm BitUm rlMi 
 which disnlnso fhcif tfttces every wliOji» Ui flm Hcpulchral 
 usages of primitive fJflilf//W, fyfJf'fJ Ffitaified in full force. 
 The simple soliility f>f ineg/in/lilc iiH gave hv o<j!//f)|^ pritt;l- 
 tive character iu tlioir ttfchiteclMr^i mfMthHiuilmlfu Itn 
 ujjpUcation to many pmctlcal {myoma of Ijfo j lilnf fhe 
 
 k 
 
 T 
 
■ w««s«ti^.H»il, »i'«w>,v'; 
 
 
 |. 
 
 3S» 
 
 METALLURGY. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 precious metals, though existing in unequalled profusion, 
 were retained to the Inst solely for their contribution to 
 barbaric splendour. The habits of pastoral life, by means 
 of which the foremost nations of the Old World appear to 
 have emerged out of barbarism, were with them modified 
 by the haunts of flocks peculiar to the strange region of 
 mountain and plateau, where also they carried the next step 
 in human progression, that of agriculture, to a degree of 
 perfection probably never surpassed. They had advanced 
 metallurgy through all its stages, up to that which preceded 
 the use of iron ; and with the help of their metal tools, 
 displayed a remarkable skill in many mechanical arts. 
 They did no more, because, under their peculiar local 
 circumstances and the repressive influences of the mild 
 despotism of Inca rule, they had achieved all that they 
 Required. 
 
 A gentle people . jund abundant occupation in tilling the 
 soil, without being oppressed by a labour which was light- 
 ened by the frequently recurring festivals of a joyous, and, 
 in some respecis, elevating national faith. Nor is it difficult 
 to conceive of sdch a people continuing to pursue the even 
 tenor of their way, with scarcely perceptible progression, 
 through all the subsequent centuries since their discovery 
 to Europe : had not the hand of the conqueror ruthlessly 
 overthrown the structure reared by many generations, and 
 quenched the lamp of native civilisation. The conquerors 
 of the sixteenth century have given expression to the 
 astonishment with which they beheld everywhere evidences 
 of order, contentment, and prosperity ; and while the archi- 
 tectural magnificence of Montezuma's capital has so utterly 
 disappeared as to suggest the doubt if it ever existed : tlic 
 traveller along the ancient routes of Peruvian industry still 
 sees on every hand ruins, not only of temples, palaces, 
 and strongholds, but of terraced declivities, military roads, 
 causeways, aqueducts, and other public works, that astonish 
 him by the solidity of their construction and the grandeur 
 
XIV.") 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE MEXICANS. 
 
 353 
 
 the 
 
 of their design. But between these two great divisions of 
 the western hemispliero, in the curiously insulated region of 
 Central America, traces of ancient civilisation abound, with 
 evidences of a highei, if not longer enduring development 
 than either. The closing annals both of Mexico and Peru 
 have acquired a vivid interest from the incidents of Spanish 
 conquest ; and retain many romantic associations connected 
 with the lustre of their conquerors. But the interest which 
 attaches to Central America and Yucatan derives little value 
 from history. There, under the luxuriant forests of that 
 tropical region, may still be studied the monuments of a 
 lettered people, and the sculptures and symbolic inscriptions 
 of an extinct faith, amid ruins hich appear to have been 
 already abandoned to decay before Cortes explor ^ the 
 peninsula in his lust of conquest. Their basso-relievos 
 preserve the physiognomy of a race essentially divci-* from 
 the Mexicans ; and their sculptured hieroglyphics show a 
 process of inscription very far in advance of the picture- 
 writing of the Aztecs. The magnitude and solidity of ilie 
 ruins of Peru still al test the practical aim of works Avrought 
 there on a grand scale, and for purposes of more obvious 
 utility than those of the Central American peninsula ; and 
 the characteristics of some of the Peruvian crania suggest 
 striking analogies \^ ith the peculiar physiognomy of the 
 northern basso-relievos, such as are no longer recognisable 
 when we turn to the Mexican race. 
 
 Notliing pertaining to the northern continent east of the 
 liocky INIountains presents any counterpart to Peruvian 
 architecture, sculpture, or the ingenious modelling of I he 
 potter's art ; or suggests affinities in language or astrono- 
 mical science, to Peru or Central America ; unless it be the 
 remarkable remains of the Mound-Builders. But with 
 Mexico it is otherwise. In the region between the Eocky 
 Mountains and the Atlantic the stock is to be sought, from 
 which on muny grounds it appears most reasonable to trace 
 the predominant Mexican race of the era of the Conquest. 
 
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354 
 
 MINGLING OF RACES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 They were inheritors, not originators of the civilisatior of 
 the plateau. But while the traditions of the Aztecs appear 
 to point to a migration from the north, the Toltecs whom 
 they displaced can be assigned on no tangible evidence to 
 a similar origin. Amid many diversities recognisable among 
 the nations of the New World, the forest and prairie tribes, 
 now clustering chiefly in the North-west, are the represen 
 tatives of one great subdivision, the source of which may 
 be sought in that northern hive stretching westward towards 
 Behring Strait and the Aleutian Islands, with possible 
 indications of an Asiatic origin. But for the more intcllec 
 tual nations whose ancient monuments lie to the south of 
 the Rio Grande del Norte, the most probable source appears 
 to be the southern plateaus of the Peruvian Cordilleras. In 
 the copper regions of the north the abundant metal sup- 
 plied all wants too readily to stimulate to further progress ; 
 but the southern region rises through every change of climate 
 under the vertical rays of the equator ; and its rocky steeps 
 arc veined with exhaustless treasures of metallic ores, in 
 such a condition as to lead man on step by step from the 
 infantile perception of the native metal as a ductile stone, 
 to the matured intelligence of the metallur(?ist, minglino- 
 and fusing the contiguous ores into his most convenient 
 and useful alloys. A branch of the same race, moving 
 northwsird along the isthmus, may account for the abundant 
 architectural remains of the central peninsula, consistently 
 with its ethnographic traces ; while beyond this, to the 
 northward, we see in the conflicting elements of Mexican 
 civilisation, tlie confluence of races from north and south, 
 and the mingling of their diverse arts find customs undiM- 
 the favouring influences which the vah) of Anahuac sup- 
 plied. 
 
 '„\i 
 
[chap. 
 
 tior of 
 appear 
 whom 
 mce to 
 camong 
 tribes, 
 presen- 
 h may 
 ;owards 
 possible 
 ntellec- 
 50utli of 
 appears 
 ras. In 
 tal sup- 
 rogress ; 
 climate 
 :y steeps 
 ores, in 
 rom the 
 c stone, 
 ningling 
 ivcnicnt 
 moving 
 )unelant 
 istently 
 to the 
 Vlexican 
 1 soutli, 
 under 
 ae siip- 
 
 XV.] 
 
 IMITATIVE SKILL. 
 
 355 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AllT CHRONICLINGS. 
 
 IMFTATIVK SKILL— ARCH.MC KUUOPKAK ART— CONVRNTIONAL ORNAMENTATION- 
 IMITATIVK DESION— ANALOGIES IN RITES AND CUSTOMS— ALTAR RECORDS— 
 fMELTING THE ORE3— WISCONSIN rRAHUE LANDS— THE RACE OP THE MOUNDS- 
 MOUND CARVINGS— PORTRAIT-SCULPTURES— AMERICAN ICONOGUAPHY— DEDUC- 
 TIONS— NON-INDIAN TYPE— OTHER EXAMPLES— ANTUJUE ICONOGRAPHtC ART- 
 PECULIAR IMITATIVE SKILL —ANIMALS REl'RIvSENTED— EXTENSIVE GEOGRAPHICAL 
 RELATIONS -KNOWLEDGE OK TROPICAL EAU.nA— DEDUCTIONS— THE TOUCAN AND 
 MANATEE— TRACES OP MIGRATION- ASSUMED INDICATIONS— ANALOGOUS SCULP- 
 TURED — PERUVIAN IMITATIVE SKILL — CARVED STONE MORTARS — NICOTIAN 
 RELIGIOUS RITES -INDIAN LEGENDS -THE RED PIPE-STONE (iUARRY— THE 
 LEAPING ROCK— MANDAN TRADITIONS— SIOUX LEGEND OP THE PEACE PIPE- 
 THE SACRED COCA PLANT— KNISTENEAUX LEGEND OF THE DELUGE- INDICATIONS 
 OF FORMER MIGRATIONS— FAVOURITE MATERIAL— PWAUGUNEKA—CHIMPSEYAN 
 CUSTOMS— CHI.MPSEYAN ART— BARKEN CARVING— THE MEDICINE i'lPE-STEM— 
 INDIAN EXPIATORY SACRIFICES— NICOTIAN RITES OF DIVINATION. 
 
 In studying the elaboi-ate sculptures of Central American 
 architecture, one of the first of its peculiar characteristics 
 to strike the eye is the predominance of representations of 
 natural ol)jecta, alike in its decorative details and in the 
 symbolism of its hieroglyphic tablets. The liuman form, 
 the head, the heart, the skull, the hand and foot, along with 
 familiar objects of animate and inanimate nature, sui)plied 
 the readiest architectural devices, and the most suggestive 
 signs for attributes and ideas. In the imitation involved 
 in such a stylo of art, re8end)lauces mny be traced to tho 
 productions of many partitdly civilised nations both of 
 ancient and modern tunes. But in reviewing the primitive 
 art of the New World, whether pertaining to extinct nations, 
 
 1:1 .■ 
 
 I! 
 
 lii 
 
 ^■i; 
 
T^ 
 
 % ■ 
 
 
 3S6 
 
 ARCHAIC EUROPEAN ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 like the Mound-Builders of Ohio and the architects of 
 Yucatan, or to Indian tribes still occupying their old hunt- 
 ing grounds, the critical observer can scarcely overlook 
 many peculiar manifestationa of imitative skill. Though 
 by no means to be regarded as an exclusive distinction of 
 the American races, this is a characteristic in which they 
 present a striking contrast to the primitive races of Europe. 
 Many of the implements and personal ornaments of the 
 ante-Christian era of European art, designated the " Bronze 
 Period," are exceedingly graceful in form, and some of 
 them highly ornamented, but there is rarely a trace of 
 imitative design. So also, though the peculiar form of one 
 primitive class of gold ornaments, found in the Britisli 
 Isles, has suggested a name derived from the calyx of a 
 flower, which the cups of its rings seem in some degree to 
 resemble, it is a mere fanciful analogy ; for no example 
 bears the slightest trace of ornament calculated to suggest 
 that such similarity was present to the mind of the ancient 
 goldsmith. Where incised or graven ornaments are wrought 
 upon the flower-like forms, they are the same chevron, or 
 herring-bone and saltire patterns, which occur on the rudest 
 clay pottery, alike of northern Europe and of America : 
 though executed on the finer gold work with considerable 
 delicacy and taste. 
 
 The correspondence between the forms and ornamentation 
 of the rudest classes of pottery of the Old and New World, 
 appears, at first sight, remarkable ; but it originates in tlie 
 inartistic simplicity inseparal)lc from all infantihi art. Tlu^ 
 ornamentation is only an improvement on the accidents 
 of manufacture. The first decorations ol the aboriginal pot- 
 ters of Europe and America appear to have been an unde- 
 signed result of the twisted cords passed round the clay to 
 retain its form before it was hardened in the fire. More 
 complicated patterns were produced by plaited or knitted 
 cords, or imitated in ruder fashion with the point of ji bone- 
 lance or bodkin. But it is only among the ullophyliau arts 
 
[chap. 
 
 its of 
 liunt- 
 Brlook 
 hough 
 :ion of 
 1 they 
 luropc. 
 of the 
 Bronze 
 me of 
 ace of 
 of one 
 Britisli 
 X of a. 
 [Tree to 
 sample 
 mggest 
 jincient 
 rought 
 Ton, or 
 rudest 
 nerica : 
 dcrable 
 
 ntation 
 World, 
 5 in the 
 The 
 'cidents 
 iial pot- 
 unde- 
 clay to 
 More 
 knitted 
 a bone- 
 ian arts 
 
 11 
 
 i 
 
 
 XV.] 
 
 CONVENTIONAL ORNAMENTATION 
 
 357 
 
 of Europe that such arbitrary patterns are perpetuated with 
 improving taste and skill. The European vase and cinerary 
 um become more graceful in contour, nnd more delicate in 
 material and construction, when they accompany the 
 beautiful weapons and personal ornaments wrought in 
 bronze. But no attempt is made to imitate leaf or flower, 
 bird, beast, or any simple natural object ; and when in the 
 bronze work of the later Iron Period, imitative forms at 
 length appear, they are chiefly the snake and dragon pat- 
 terns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic and Teutonic wanderers, 
 with the wild fancies of their mythology, from the eastern 
 cradle-land of their birth. 
 
 This absence of every trace of imitation in the form., and 
 decorations of the archaic art of northern Europe, is curious 
 and noteworthy : for remarkable traces, already referrea to, 
 pertaining to its palseotechnic era, prove that it is by no 
 means an invariable characteristic of primitive art. In the 
 simplest forms of ancient weapons, implements, and pottery, 
 mere utility was the aim. The rude savage, whether of 
 Europe or America, had neither leisure nor thought to spare 
 for decorative art. His Aesthetic faculty had not begun to 
 influence his constructive instincts. Art was the child of 
 necessity, and borrowed its first adjuncts of adornment 
 from the sources whence it liad received its convenient but 
 arbitraiy forms. But the moment we get beyond this utili- 
 tarian stage, the contrast between the products of European 
 and Ameri(*an art is exceedingly striking ; and their value 
 to the ethnologist and archaeologist becomes great, from the 
 insight they give into the aspects of mental expression, and 
 the intellectual phases of social life, among unhistoric 
 generations. The useful arts of the British all()2)liylian 
 progressed until they superinduced the decorative and fine 
 aits. But the ornamentation was inventive, and not 
 imitative ; it was arbitrary, conventional, and singularly 
 persistent in style. It wrought itself into all his external 
 expressions of thought ; and Avhatever his religious worship 
 
 fill 
 
'^-r^"yj'-'*^"-*t^^r' 
 
 K-» ' 
 
 p., ■ ' 
 it ■■ ii 
 
 iPm 
 
 
 558 
 
 IMITATIVE DESIGN. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 may Lave been, we look in vain for proofs of idolatrv, 
 among the innumerable relies which have been recovered 
 from supposed Druidical fanes, or the older cromlechs and 
 tumuli of the British Isles.^ The very opposite character- 
 istics meet the eye the moment we turn to the primitive 
 arts of the New AVorld. There, indications of imitative 
 design meet us on every hand. The rude tribes of the 
 North-west, though living in the simplest condition of 
 savage life, not only copy the familiar animal and vegetable 
 forms with which they are surrounded : but represent, with 
 ingenious skill, novel objects of European art introduced to 
 tlieir notice. Even their plaited and wo7en grass and 
 quill- work assume a pictorial aspect ; and the pottery is not 
 only ornamented with patterns derived from flowers and 
 other natural objects, but more elaborated examples are 
 occasionally moulded into the forms of animals. Still more 
 is this the case with the tubes, masks, personal ornaments, 
 and, above all, the pipe-heads, alike of the Mound-Builders, 
 and of living races. Nor does it stop with such miniature 
 productions of art. The same imitative faculty reappears 
 in the great earthworks of Wisconsin and Ohio : where the 
 artist has wrought out representations of natural objects on 
 a colossal scale. 
 
 The chronicles recorded by such means are invaluable. 
 The walls of Central American ruins are covered with voice- 
 less hieroglyphics ; and the costly folios of Lord Kings- 
 borough's Mexican Antiquities have placed at the command 
 of the scholars of both hemispheres the dubious ideography of 
 native historians. But the artistic representations preserved 
 alike in the bas-reliefs and statues of Palenquc, or in the char- 
 actv-ristic pipe sculpture of the Ohio mounds, arc as signifi- 
 cant and easy of interpretation as those on the Ramesian 
 tablets of Abbosimbul in Nubia, which demonstrate the 
 existence, in the era of Lameees, of Semitic and Ethiopian 
 races, with ethnical diversities as clearly defined as now. 
 
 * Vide Prehistoric Aunah of Scotland, vol, i. pp. •40G-498. 
 
XV.] 
 
 ANALOG /ES IN RITES AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 359 
 
 Among the characteristics of ancient and modern nations 
 discernible in peculiar rites and customs, or disclosed in 
 their arts, there are some that indicate widely diffused 
 hereditary influences, and so furnish a clew to remote 
 affinities of race. The practice of circumcision, for example, 
 which prevails both in Asia and Africa, wherever the 
 influence of Semitic nations can be traced, strikingly illus- 
 trates the value of such indices. Another ancient custom, 
 that of systematic cranial distortion, was common to 
 nations of both hemispheres, and is proved by the evidence 
 of ancient sculpture to hive been in use at the period of 
 highest architectural art in Central America. The Indian war- 
 trophy of the scalp, and its singular counterpart, the peace- 
 pipe, are also significant usages of the New World ; though 
 the former appears to have been equally common among 
 ancient Asiatic nations. Herodotus refers to scalping as 
 one of the most characteristic war-customs of the Scythians, 
 and to their hanging the scalp-trophies to the warrior's 
 bridle-rein. Hence the airoa-KvOl^eiv of Euripides, quoted 
 by Rawlinson, when remarking on the rcs»jmblance of such 
 ancient customs to those of the Ked Indians. The corre- 
 spondence is worthy of note, in connection with others 
 afterwards referred to, as possibly indicative of something 
 more than a mere American coi.nterpart to Egyptian and 
 Oriental accumulations of trophies of the slain — the skulls, 
 the bauds, the ears, or even the foreskins, — repeatedly 
 referred to in the Old Testament Scriptures, and recorded 
 with minute detail on the paintings of Egypt, and the 
 sculptures of Nimroud and Khorsabad. But no such 
 analogies throw light on the singular usage of the peace- 
 pipe. The ethnical relations wdiich it indicates beh)ng 
 exclusively to the New World, where it seems to perpetuate 
 a Hignificaiit synd)oliHm derived from an extinct native 
 civilisation. As such, it is worthy of study by the Ameri- 
 can ethnologist, as the most curious of the nuiiiy pnictices 
 connected with the use of the strange nicotian stimulant. 
 
 Ill 
 
300 
 
 ALTAR RECORDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 
 H 
 
 \ 
 
 The pipe appears to have been associated with solemn 
 religious rites and civic ceremonials, both in ancient and 
 modern times. It bore a prominent part in the worship of 
 the old Mound- Builders ; and still retains its place among 
 the paraphernalia of the inspired medicine man or priest, 
 and the most sacred credentials of the ambassador or war- 
 chief. 
 
 The implements designed for the use of tobacco or other 
 narcotic herbs, occupy a prominent place among the works 
 of art of which the sacrificial mounds are the principal 
 depositories. In accordance with the almost universal 
 custom of barbarous and semi-civilised nations, the Mound- 
 Builders devoted to their dead whatever had been most 
 piized in life, or was deemed valuable for some talismanic 
 <vharm. Hence the Mississippi mounds, and the ancient 
 tombs of Mexico and Peru, disclose the same kind of 
 evidence of the past as Wilkinson has deduced from the 
 catacombs of Egypt, or Dennis from the sepulchres of 
 Etruria. But in addition to this, the remarkable religious 
 rites of the American Mound-Builders have preserved not 
 only their altars, but the oflferings lai^l upon them. The 
 perishable garments of the dead have necessarily disap- 
 peared ; and of instruments or utensils of wood or other 
 combustible materials it is vain to expect a trace, where 
 even metal has melted, and the stone been calcined in the 
 blaze of sacrificial fires ; but articles of copper and stone, 
 of fictile ware, and even of shell, ivory, and bone, have 
 escaped the destructive flame, and withstood the action of 
 time. In such enduring chaiacters inscriptions are legibly 
 graven upon the altars of the Mound-Builders. Let us try 
 to translate their records into the language of modern 
 thought. 
 
 What such relics record in reference to metallurgy has 
 already been seen. The Monnd-Builders were acquainted 
 with several of the metals. Tiiey had both tlie silver and 
 lead of Iowa and Wisconsin in use. Implements and 
 
XV.] 
 
 SMELTING THE ORES. 
 
 361 
 
 ry has 
 liiited 
 \x and 
 and 
 
 personal ornaments of copper abound on tlieir altars ; and 
 the mechanical combination of silver ,vith the native copper 
 of which those are made, indicates that they derived their 
 supplies from Lake Superior, where alone the metals have 
 hitherto been found in the singular mechanico-chemical 
 combination of crystals of silver in a copper matrix. Their 
 sacrificial fires have in some cases fused the metallic offer- 
 ings on the altars into a mass of molten metal, so that the 
 Mound-Builders had thus presented to them this all-impor- 
 tant lesson of metallurgy. Mr. F. S. Perkins, of Burlington, 
 Wisconsin, whose collection of native copper implements 
 numbers upwards of sixty specimens, has arrived at the 
 conclusion that some of those from the ancient mounds 
 have been cast in moulds \ and Mr. J. W. Foster concurs 
 in the belief that the Mound-Builders had learned to smelt 
 tb jres.^ This still requires further proof. At Cincinnati, 
 I saw in the collection of Mr. Cleneay, a choice specimen of 
 a copper axe, found on the banks of Hog Creek, a tributary 
 of the Oreat Miami. It measures fifteen inches long, and 
 weighs 5 lb. 5 J oz. ; but though well proportioned, and 
 finisiied with unusual care, it is entirely the work of the 
 hammer. Only in one case, of an axe from the Lockport 
 Mound, have I seen indications which seem to suggest a 
 process of casting. But specimens of accidentally melted 
 copper repeatedly occur ; and Mr. Jas. R. Skinner, of Cincin- 
 nati, showed me a melted mass of pure sib^'^r, of 4 lb. 
 weight, found lying on a heap of charcoal, in cutting through 
 the embankment surrounding a large mound at Marietta. 
 Nothing further was needed than the practical sagacity by 
 which similar accidents have been turned to account, to 
 lead the Mound-Builders one step beyond this, to the use 
 of the crucible and the mould. It would not, therefore, 
 surprise me to find partial trace?, of the use of both. Their 
 imitative skill, and ability in modelling, had already taught 
 them the use of the mould v/hen working in clay. But 
 
 1 Prehistoric Raca qf the Unitetl States, p. 293. 
 
 i 
 
 Mi 
 
 m 
 
362 
 
 WISCONSIN PRAIRIE-LANDS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I'.'. 
 
 
 J-p; 
 
 ■'ill 
 
 they had, at best, a very rudimentary knowledge of metal- 
 lurgy ; they do not appear to have acquired, b}" barter or 
 otherwise, any specimens of the alloyed metals ; and only 
 mechanically combined their copper with silver. Hematite, 
 though prized by them, was used simply as a stone. They 
 were familiar with silver, and shaped it into many personal 
 ornaments. The sulphuret of lead was also known to them ; 
 and was turned to account both for use and ornamentation. 
 Thus far, then, it appears that the Mound-Builders 
 shared in the metallurgic wealth of the great copper region. 
 We are reminded, accordingly, that the broad undulating 
 prairie-lands of Wisconsin, with their remarkable symbolic 
 earthworks, lie directly between the shores of Lake Supe- 
 rior and the region occupied by the Mound-Builders. The 
 monuments of the latter abound with examples of their 
 builders' arts ; and are surrounded with varied proofs of 
 settled occupation, civic and religious structures, and per- 
 manent defensive military works. Throughout Wisconsin, 
 on the contrary, the symbolic mounds stand alone, and have 
 hitherto been found, with a few rare exceptions, to contain 
 no relics. Neither earthworks adapted to religious rites, 
 nor military defences, attest that that region was occu- 
 pied by a numerous population, such as its many natural 
 advantages fitted it to sustain. Hencd the conjecture that 
 the mineral country on the southern shores of the Great 
 Lake was the recognised source of supply for the whole 
 population north of the Gulf of Mexico ; and that diflerent 
 tribes throughout the vast basin of the Mississippi and its 
 tributaries were wont to send working parties thither, as to 
 a region common to all. Such an idea accords with the 
 further conjecture that the symbolic mounds of Wisconsin 
 may be memorials of sacred rites, or pledges of neutrality 
 among nations from the various tributaries of the great 
 river, as they annually met on this border-land of the 
 common metallic storehouse. It is obvious that the Mound- 
 Builders were a highly religious people. Their superstitious 
 
XV.] 
 
 THE RACE OF THE MOUNDS. 
 
 l^l 
 
 onsiii 
 rality 
 great 
 the 
 Dund- 
 itious 
 
 rites were of frequent occurrence, and accompanied vviili 
 costly sacrifices ; while in the numerous symbolic mounds 
 of Wisconsin, labour alone is the sacrifice, and the external 
 form preserves the one idea at which their builders aimed. 
 
 So far, this theory of a sacred neutral ground and common 
 mineral region is conjectural. Nevertheless, it involves 
 certain facts to be borne in view for comparison with others 
 of a diverse kind. In the once densely peopled regions of 
 Ohio and Illinois, where the works of the Mound-Builders 
 abound, the river valleys were occupied by an ingenious 
 and industrious agricultural population : who, if not aggres- 
 sive and war-like, employed their constructive skill on 
 extensive works for military defence. Whencesoever the 
 danger existed that they had thus to apprehend and guard 
 against, there is no trace of its localisation within the region 
 lying immediately to the south of Lake Superior, through 
 which their path lay to the great copper country. More 
 probably offensive and defensive warfare was carried on 
 between tribes or states of the Mound Eace settled on 
 diflerent tributaries of the same great water-system. But 
 the growing civilisation of the nations of the Mississippi 
 valley was also exposed to the aggression of barbarian tribes 
 of the North-west ; for if the Mound-Builders diff*ered in 
 culture and race from the progenitors of the modern Red 
 Indian, some of their arts and customs render it probable 
 that the latter were not unknown to them. 
 
 So far, then, we connect the race of the Mounds with the 
 shores of Lake Superior, and thus trace out for them a 
 relation to regions of the North. But the objects wrought 
 by their artistic skill reveal no less certninly their fiimiliarity 
 with animals of southern and even tropical latitudes ; and 
 the materials employed in their manufactures include mica 
 of the Alleghanies, the obsidian of Mexico, and jade and 
 porphyry derived probal)ly from the same region, or from 
 others still farther south. Such facts warn us against any 
 hastily constructed hypothesis of migrations for a people to 
 
 
 I v.- 
 
 k 
 
 ■tk'lf 
 
li 
 
 
 1 n 
 
 I -'i 
 
 -1,: .' !l 
 
 364 
 
 MOUND CARVINGS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 whom the resources of so many dissimilar regions were 
 partially known. We see in them, however, proofs of an 
 extensive traffic ; and may assume, as at least exceedingly 
 probable, the existence of widely extended relations among 
 that singular race. It is not to be inferred from the use 
 of terms specifically applied to modem trade, that they 
 are intended to suggest the possession of a currency and 
 exchanges, of banking agencies, or manufacturing corpora- 
 tions. But, without confounding the traces of a rudimentary 
 civilisation with characteristics of its mature development, 
 there are proofs sufficient to justify the inference that the 
 Mound-Builders traded with the copper of Lake Superior 
 for objects of necessity and luxury brought from widely- 
 separated regions of the continent. Such exchanges may 
 have been effected by many intermediate agencies, rather 
 than by any direct traffic. But the river system of the 
 Mississippi has furnished to the later forest tribes facilities 
 for interchange under far less favourable circumstances ; 
 and such a systematic trade among an ingenious and settled 
 people may have materially contributed to the progress of 
 civilisation in the populous valleys of the Ohio. 
 
 Turning next to the carvings in stone recovered from 
 the mounds, they include objects of singular interest, some 
 cf which, at least, fully merit the designation of works of 
 art. Compared, indeed, with the sculptures in porphyry 
 and the great Calendar Stone of Mexico ; the elaborate 
 fa§ades and columned terraces of Uxmal, Zayi, and Kabah ; 
 and the colossal statues, basso-relievos and hieroglyphics of 
 Copan and Palenque : the art of the Mound-Builders, which 
 expended its highest efforts on the decoration of a tube, or 
 the sculpture of a pipe-bowl, may appear insignificant 
 enough. But the imagination is apt to be impressed by 
 mere size, and requires to be reminded of the superior 
 excellence of a Greek medal or a Roman gem to all the 
 colossal grandeur of an Egyptian Memnon. The architec- 
 ture and sculpture of Central America preserve to us the 
 
[chap, 
 
 IS were 
 s of an 
 sdingly 
 
 among 
 the use 
 it they 
 cy and 
 orpora- 
 nentary 
 )praeut, 
 hat the 
 luperior 
 widely- 
 ;es may 
 , rather 
 
 of the 
 acilities 
 stances ; 
 . settled 
 gresa of 
 
 d from 
 5t, some 
 ^orks of 
 )rphyry 
 aborate 
 vabah ; 
 hies of 
 
 which 
 ube, or 
 nificant 
 sed by 
 uperior 
 
 all the 
 rchitec- 
 
 us the 
 
 XV.] 
 
 PORTRAIT-SCULPTURE. 
 
 365 
 
 highest intellectual efforts of the New World, and are ani- 
 mated by a historical significance which cannot be over- 
 estimated. Nevertheless, examples among the miniature 
 works of art of the Ohio Valley admit of comparison with 
 them in some essential elements of artistic skill. Apart, 
 indeed, from the significance of the hieroglyphics with 
 which the colossal statues of Copan are graven, they might 
 rank with the monstrous creations of Hindu art ; whereas 
 some of the objects taken from altars of " Mound City " 
 furnish specimens of imitative design and portrait-sculpture 
 full of cliaracter and individuality. 
 
 The simplicity, variety, and minute expression in many 
 of the miniature mound-sculptures, their delicacy of execu- 
 tion and imitative skill, render them just objects of interest. 
 But foremost in every trait of value for the elucidation of 
 the history or characteristics of their workers, are the 
 human heads, which, when the accuracy of many of the 
 miniature sculptures of animals is considered, it can scarcely 
 be doubted, perpetuate faithful representations of the 
 ancient people by whom they were executed. Equally 
 well-authenticated portraiture of Umbrian, Pelasgian, or 
 other mythical races of Europe would be invaluable to the 
 ethnologist. It would solve som^' of the knottiest problems 
 of his science, better than all the ol ^ure disquisitions to 
 which the aboriginal population of G ^ce and Itnly has 
 given rise. American ethnologists, ace dingly, have not 
 failed to turn such iconographic evidence to even more 
 account than legitimate induction will sustain, in support 
 of their favourite argument for an indigenous unity of the 
 whole ancient and modern races of the New World. 
 
 By means of such artistic relics we can determine the 
 physical characteristics of the Mound -Builders, and of con- 
 temporary tribes or nations known to them. We also learn 
 the character of fauna, native and foreign to the region 
 occupied by them, with which they were familiar. I have 
 had an opportunity of carefully inspecting the valuable 
 
 A 
 
 
366 
 
 AMERICAN ICONOGRAPHY. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 I :M 
 
 collection of mound-sculptures in the possession of Dr. E. 
 H. Davis of New York.^ In some cases, perhaps, their 
 artistic merits have been overrated. Nevertheless the 
 minute accuracy with which many of the objects of natural 
 history have been copied is reDiarka1)le ; and confirms the 
 reliance to be placed on the ethnical portraiture perpetuated 
 in their representations of the human head. 
 
 Of these invaluable examples of ancient American icono- 
 o-^-apliy, one (Fig. 77) has attracted special notice, not only 
 as the most beautiful head of the series, but from its sup- 
 posed oorrerpondcnce to the type of the modern North 
 American Indian. The workmanship of thi.^ head is 
 
 i 
 
 l'"io. 7".— rortrait Mound Piiic. 
 
 described by its discoverers as '* unsurpassed by any speci- 
 men of ancient American arc which has fallen under the 
 notice of th<i authors, not excepting the best productions of 
 Mexico and Peru."^ In the well-executed illustration whic]i 
 accompanies these remarks, the Red Indian features are 
 unmistakably represented ; nor has this failed to rt re 
 abundant attention, and to have ascribed to it evc^n more 
 than its due importance. Mr. Francis Pulszky, the learned 
 Hungarian, thus comments on it in his Icofiographie 
 Researches on Human Races and their Art: — "A most 
 characteristic, we may say artistically beautiful head, the 
 
 ' This collection Ims since bcou acquired for the Bh.;kiii()re Mneeum. 
 
 ^ Ancient AIummiHfii ii/' the 4yiit.HisHl/>i>i Vtill'ji, ]u '245, tig, 145. ? ^ - 
 
XV.] 
 
 DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 3^7 
 
 apcci- 
 T the 
 oils of 
 vvliicli 
 s arc 
 re 
 more 
 iriiod 
 
 most 
 , the 
 
 
 I 
 
 workmanship of these uiiknowu Mound-Builders, dug up 
 and published by Squier, exhibits the peculiar Indian feat- 
 ures so faithfully, and with such sculptural perfection, that 
 we cannot withhold or.r admiration from their artistic pro- 
 ficiency. It proves three things : 1st, That these Mound- 
 Builders were American Indian in type ; 2d, That time 
 (age ante-Columbian, but otherwise, unknown,) has not 
 changed the type of this indigenous group of races ; and 
 3d, That the Mound-Builders were prob[d)ly a<;quainted 
 with no other men but themselves."^ Such are the sweep- 
 ing deductions drawn from premises supplied by a single 
 example of mound-sculpture : or rather by tlic depiction of 
 
 Fi(t. VS.—roitralt Mound rii>c. 
 
 it in Messrs. Squier and Davis's volume ; for after a careful 
 examination of the original, its ethnic characteristics appear 
 to me to be mainly due to tlie pencil of the draughtsman, 
 who has, no doubt undesignedly, given to his drawing much 
 more of the typical Indian features than are traceable in the 
 original. Of this Figs. 77 and 78 are more accurate copies ; 
 and from these it will be seen that the nose, instead of 
 having the salient Roman arch there represented, is per- 
 fectly straight, and is neither very prominent nor dilated. 
 The mouth, though protuberant, is small ; the lips are thin ; 
 instead of the characteristic ponderous maxillary region of the 
 true Indian, the chin and the up[)er lij) are both short ; and 
 
 ^j V: >.,:;:: ' » UuU\}vmm llaevs of the Earth, p. 183. 1; ;- " 1'; ; :'r 
 
 ;-i.ii 
 
368 
 
 NON-INDIAN TYPE, 
 
 » 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ' ! 
 
 riw 
 
 «8t , 1 tffi 
 
 the lower jaw, without any marked width between the con- 
 dyles, is small, and tapers gradually towards the chin. 
 Perhaps it is owing to this smallness of the lower portion 
 of the head and face, that it was supposed to represent a 
 female. But such an idea is not suggested by any marked 
 characteristic either in the features or head-dress. The 
 cheek-bones, though high, are by no means so prominent as 
 in the original engraving. Indeed, the projection is almost 
 entirely in front, giving a tumid cheek immediately under 
 the eye. I doubt if any competent observer, ignorant of 
 the history of this relic, would assign it to an Indian type. 
 
 It is apparent, therefore, that the inferences drawn from 
 the representation of a single example of mound-sculpture 
 are based on inaccurate premises. But even supposing the 
 head to reproduce the features of the modern Indian : it 
 would by no means prove the three propositions deduced 
 from its discovery ; since it is not the uuly specimen of 
 sculptured portraiture discovered in the mounds, and we 
 look in vain in other examples for these points of Indian 
 physiognomy which would first attract the eye of the imita- 
 tive modeller or sculptor. The salient and dilated nose, 
 
 prominent cheek-bones, massive 
 jaw, and large mouth, may be as- 
 signed as the most noticeable 
 characteristics ; but all or nearly 
 all of those are wanting in most 
 of the other sculptured heads or 
 masks. The character of these may 
 be seen iii the hc;id engraved here 
 (Fig. 79), derived from the same 
 rich depository opened in " Mound 
 City.' It is cut in a compact yel- 
 lowish stone. The nose is nearly in a 
 line with the forehead, excepting at the point, which projects 
 in a manner certainly by no means characteristic of Indian 
 features ; and though the lips protrude, they arc delicate, 
 
 Fiu. 79.- I'oitiiiit Mouiul I'iiw. 
 
XV.] 
 
 OTHER EXAMPLES. 
 
 369 
 
 may 
 hero 
 iame 
 mnd 
 y(3l- 
 iii a 
 Ijccts 
 ]diaii 
 Icate, 
 
 and the mouth is small. The ears in both are larj^e, and 
 in the latter are perforated with four small holes around 
 their upper edges, in this case, from the delicacy of the 
 features, it is suggested with greater probability than in the 
 former example, that it has been designed after a female 
 model. Another head,* executed in the same material, is 
 much altered by fire. It has not, like the previous examples, 
 been designed for a pipe-head, but is broken ofif from a com- 
 plete human figure, or other larger piece of carving. It is 
 much inferior as a work of art, and indeed approaches the 
 grotesque or caricature. Nevertheless, it has considerable 
 character in its expression ; and no one familiar with the 
 Indian cast of countenance would readily assign either to it 
 or the previous specimen of mound-sculpture any aim at 
 such representation, if unaware of the circumstances of their 
 discovery. In this, as in others of the heads, the face is 
 tattooed, and the ears have been perforated ; and from the 
 strongly attached oxide of copper, there can be little doubt 
 that they were decorated with rings or pendants of that 
 metal. Other portrait sculptures and terra-cottas, either 
 found in the mounds, or discovered within the region where 
 they chiefly abound, are figured in the works of Squier, 
 Schoolcraft, Laphara, Foster, Jones, and in the American 
 Ethnological Society's Transactions. The majority of them 
 are inferior as works of ait to those already described. 
 But if they possess any value as indications of the physio- 
 gnomical type of ancient American races, they tend to 
 confirm the idea of a prevailing diversity instead of a 
 uniformity of cranial form and features. 
 
 The discovery of a sculptured head betraying traces of 
 Indian features, among many of a different typo, co'iesponds 
 to another interesting fact, that animals foreign to the 
 region, and even to the North American continent, are 
 figured in the mound-sculptures. It presents a parallel to 
 well-known examples of Etruscan vases moulded in the 
 
 ' Anmut Monumenta of the Afmissippi Valley (No. 14.S). 
 VOL. 1. 2 A ' 
 
370 
 
 ANTIQUE JCONOGRAPHIC ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ;'' 
 
 form of negroes' heads ; and of Greek pottery painted with 
 the same characteristic features and woolly hair. Specimens 
 of both are preserved among the collections of the British 
 Museum, and furnish interesting evidence, alike of the 
 permanency of the negro type, and of the familiarity both 
 of Greek and Etruscan artists with the African features, 
 long prior to the Christian era. Similar examples of foreign 
 portraiture have attracted attention on the older monu- 
 ments of Egypt, and among the basso-relievos of the tomb 
 of Darius Hystaspes at Persepolis : supplying interesting 
 illustrations of imitative art employed in the perpetuation 
 of ethnic peculiarities of physiognomy. Supposing, there- 
 fore, the Mound Builders to have been a {settled population, 
 as distinct from a contemporaneous Indian race as the 
 classic nations of antiquity differed from the barbarian 
 tribes beyond the Alps and the Rhine : it is no more sur- 
 prising to trace the genuine Indian features in mound- 
 sculptures, than to discover those of the Dacian or the Gaul 
 on the column of Trajan. It proves that the Mound- 
 Builders were familiar with the American Indian type, but 
 nothing more. The evidence indeed tends very distinctly 
 to suggest that they were not of the same type ; since the 
 majority of sculptured human heads hitherto recovered 
 from their ancient depositories do not reproduce the Indian 
 features. 
 
 The physical type of the Mound-Builders will again come 
 under consideration in a subsequent chapter ; but it is 
 interesting meanwhile to observe that even in the charac- 
 teristics of this portrait-sculpture distinctive qualities appear. 
 The imitative faculty manifests itself in expressive varieties 
 of style, in mod(;rn Indian art. Some tribes, such as the 
 Algonquins, confine themselves to literal reproductions of 
 natural objects, while others, such as the Babeens, indulge 
 in a grotesque and ingeniously diversified play of fancy. 
 But the intellectual development implied in individual 
 portraiture goes beyond this, and is rare indeed among 
 
Y \ 1 
 - 1 - -- 
 
 I!: 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 with 
 
 mens 
 
 ritisli 
 
 i the 
 
 'both 
 
 itures, 
 
 Dieign 
 
 oaonu- 
 
 ', tomb 
 
 :esting 
 
 uation 
 
 there- 
 
 ilation, 
 
 as the 
 
 rbarian 
 
 ire sur- 
 
 mound- 
 
 lie Gaul 
 
 Vlound- 
 
 pe, but 
 
 stinctly 
 
 nee the 
 ovcred 
 Indian 
 
 lin come 
 it it is 
 charac- 
 appcar. 
 arieties 
 
 as the 
 :ions of 
 I indulge 
 
 fancy, 
 [ividual 
 
 among 
 
 XV.] 
 
 PECULIAR IMITATIVE SKILL. 
 
 371 
 
 nations in the earlier stages of civilisation. Even among 
 the civilised Mexicans, imitations of the human face and 
 figure appear to have seldom passed beyond the grotesque ; 
 and although the sculptors of Central America and Yucatan 
 manifested an artistic power which accords with the civili- 
 sation of a lettered people : yet in the majority of their 
 statues and reliefs, we see the subordination of the human 
 form and features to the symbolism of tLcir mythology, or 
 to mere decorative requirements. It thus seems that, amid 
 the general prevalence of an aptitude for imitative art, alike 
 among the ancient and modern nations of the American 
 continent, the Mound-Builders, though working within a 
 narrow range, developed a power of appreciating its minuter 
 delicacies such as is only traceable elsewhere among th-^ 
 choicest sculptures of Uxmal and Palenque. 
 
 To this imitative skill we owe othev works which have 
 an important signifi^cance in relation to ethnological problems 
 affecting the ancient population of the New World. Refer- 
 ence has already been made to the curious collection of stone 
 pipes, recovered from one of the smaller tumuli of " Moimd 
 City." They included some of the sculptured human heads ; 
 but the bowls of most of them were carved into figures of 
 beasts, birds, and reptiles. On these the ancient sculptors 
 appear to have lavished their artistic skill with a degree of 
 care bestowed on none other of the less perishable works, from 
 which alone we can now judge of their intellectual develop- 
 ment. " Not only," as Messrs. Squier and Davis observe, 
 " are the features of the various objects represented faith- 
 fully, but their peculiarities and habits are in some degree 
 exhibited. The otter is shown in a characteristic attitude, 
 holding a fish in his mouth ; the heron also holds a fish ; 
 and the hawk grasps a small bird in its talons, which it tears 
 with its beak. The panther, the bear, the wolf, the beaver, 
 the otter, the squirrel, the racoon, the hawk, the heron, crow, 
 swallow, buzzard, the paroquet, toucan, and other indigen- 
 ous and southern birds ; the turtle, the frog, toad, rattle- 
 
 Ill] 
 
 iM 
 
 
 i:^ii. 
 
 
372 
 
 ANIMALS REPRESENTED. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 ' ^1 
 
 W*K 
 
 snake, etc., are recognised at first glance ;"^ and in addition 
 to those, the jaguar or panther, the cougar, the elk, the 
 opossum, the alligator, and numerous land and water birds, 
 including several varieties of the owls, herons, and other 
 species, have all been recognised among more recent dis- 
 closures. Many of those are represented in characteristic 
 attitudes, and with much skill nnd fidelity of portraiture. 
 The exuberant fancy of the ancient sculptors also displays 
 itself at times in humorous masks, and incongruous devices, 
 such as a goose's head cut in a hard black stone, which on 
 looking to the back becomes a human skull. Some of those 
 works appear to have been executed, like the sportive 
 sketches of the modern artist, with no other object than the 
 carver's own gratification. 
 
 Unfinished carvings show the process by which they 
 wore wrought. A toad, in a characteristic attitude, but 
 only roughly shaped out, " very well exhibits the mode of 
 workmansliip. While the general surface appears covered 
 with stripe running in every direction, as if produced by 
 rubbing, the folds and lines are clearly cut with some sort 
 of graver. The marks of the implement, chipping out 
 portions a fourth of an inch in length, are too distinct to 
 admit the slightest doubt that a cutting tool was used in 
 the work." Again, in another pipe-head, blocked out into 
 the form of a bird, "the lines indicating the feathers, 
 grooves of the beak, and other more delicate features, are 
 cut or graved on the surface at a single stroke. Gome 
 pointed tool appears to have been used, and the marks are 
 visible where it has occasionally slipped beyond the control 
 of the engraver. Indeed, the whole appearance of the 
 specimen indicates that the work was done rapidly by an 
 experienced hand, and that the various parts were brought 
 forward simultaneously. The freedom of the strokes could 
 only result from long practice ; and we may infer that the 
 manufacture of pipes had a distinct place in the industrial 
 
 1 Ancient Monuments of the MiHaitia'ipjn Valley, p. 152. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 ition 
 
 , the 
 
 Dirds, 
 
 other 
 
 ; dis- 
 
 iristic 
 
 iture. 
 
 splays 
 
 (vices, 
 
 ch on 
 
 those 
 
 ortive 
 
 m the 
 
 . they 
 e, but 
 lode of 
 overed 
 ;ed by 
 e sort 
 12: out 
 Inct to 
 Ised in 
 t into 
 Xhers, 
 jes, are 
 Some 
 tks are 
 kontrol 
 )f the 
 by an 
 [•ought 
 could 
 [at the 
 lustrial 
 
 XV.] EXTENSIVE GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS. 373 
 
 organisation of the Mound-Builders." But this, though 
 full of interest, need not surprise us, since the art of the 
 arrow-maker, which required both skill and experience, was 
 pursued among the forest-tribes as a special craft ; nor is 
 that of the pipe-maker even now wholly abandoned. 
 
 So far, therefore, we are enabled by such means to look 
 back into that remote past. We see the industrious sculp- 
 tor at his task ; and holding silent converse with him over 
 his favourite works, we learn somewhat of his own physical 
 aspect, of the range of his geographical experience, his 
 mental capacity and intellectual development. The pottery 
 of the mounds, in like manner, adds to our knowledge of 
 the art and civilisation of the age in which it was pro- 
 
 l''i(i. 80. — Miiiialce, I'iptj-Sculiitui'c. 
 
 duced. But, next in importance to the evidence thus fur- 
 nished, the miniature sculptures of the mounds derive their 
 chief value from indications they supply of the extent and 
 nature of the geographical relations of their owners. By 
 the fidelity of the representations of so great a variety of 
 subjects copied from animal life, they furnish evidence of a 
 knowledge in the Mississippi Valley of fauna peculiar not 
 only to southern but to tropical latitudes, extending beyond 
 the Isthmus into the southern continent : and suggestive 
 either of arts derived from a foreign source, and intercourse 
 maintained with regions where the civilisation of ancient 
 America attained its highest development ; or else indicat- 
 
374 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF TROPICAL FAUNA. [chap. 
 
 ^1' ' '. 
 
 
 ing migration into the northern continent of the race of the 
 ancient graves of Central and Southern America, bringing 
 with them the arts of the tropics, and models derived from 
 animals familiar to their fathers in the parent-land of the 
 race. 
 
 Of one of the most interesting of those exotic models, the 
 Lamantin or Manatee, seven sculptured figures have been 
 taken from the mounds of Ohio. This phytophagous 
 cetacean, which, when full grown, measures from fifteen to 
 twenty feet in length, is found only in tropical waters. 
 Species haunt the estuaries and large rivers of Central and 
 intertropical South America ; as also those of both the 
 eastern and western sides of tropical Africa : and sometimes 
 ascend the rivers to a great distance from the sea. Ex- 
 amples were seen by Humboldt in the Kio Meta, a branch 
 of the Orinoco, one thousand miles above its mouth. They 
 are also found among the Antilles, and on the coast of the 
 Florida peninsula. The most characteristic details in their 
 form which chiefly attracted attention when the Manatee 
 was first brought under the notice of Europeans, are faith- 
 fully reproduced in the Mound sculptures. Fancy helped 
 to exaggerate the peculiarities of this strange animal to the 
 earliest European voyagers, and from them it received the 
 name of the Siren. But its most remarkable feature is the 
 fore paw, occupying the usual place of the cetacean fin, 
 but bearing so close a resemblance to a human hand that 
 the name Manatee is generally supposed to have been con- 
 ferred on it by the first Spanish explorers on this account.* 
 It is ranked according to ecclesiastical natural history as a 
 fish ; and its flesh is in special request at St. Christopher's, 
 Guadaloupe, Martinique, and in various South American 
 localities, during Lent. Its form is therefore familiar to 
 the natives of South America, and was once equally well 
 known to those of the Antilles, and probably to the ancient 
 
 ^ Thia derivation from the Spanish Mano is rejected by some etymologists for 
 n native Carib one, Manaitoiii. * ' 
 
XV.] 
 
 DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 375 
 
 as a 
 
 sta for 
 
 coastmen of the Gulf. But we must account bv other 
 means for the discovery of accurate representations of it 
 among the sculptures of the far-inland Ohio mounds ; and 
 the same remark applies to the jaguar or panther, the 
 cougar, the toucan ; to the buzzard possibly, and also to 
 the paroquet. The majority of those animals are not known 
 in the United States ; some of them are totally unknown 
 within any part of the North American continent. Others 
 may be classed with the paroquet, which, though essentially 
 a southern bird, and common around the Gulf, does occasion- 
 ally make its appearance inland ; and so might become known 
 to the antravelled Mound-Builder in his northern home. 
 
 The importance of such evidence that the ancient dwellers 
 in the Scioto Valley hud some knowledge of tropical animpJs, 
 and even of those confined exclusively to the southern con- 
 tinent, has not escaped the notice of the explorers of the 
 mounds. It has even induced them to hesitate in assigning 
 the name of the toucan to sculptures concerning the design 
 of which there could be no other reasonable ground for 
 doubt. Referring to the manatee sculptures, they remark : 
 "These singular relics have a direct bearing upon some 
 of the questions connected with the origin of the mounds. 
 They are undistinguishable, so far as material and work- 
 manship are concerned, from an entire class of remains 
 found in them, and are evidently the work of the same 
 hands with the other effigies of beasts and birds; and 
 yet they faithfully represent animals found (and only in 
 small numbers), a thousand miles distant upon the shores 
 of Florida, or — if the birds seemingly belonging to the 
 zygodactylous order be really designed to represent the 
 toucan, — found only in the tropical regions of South 
 America. Either the same race, possessing throughout a 
 like style of workmanship, and deriving their materials 
 from a common source, existed contemporaneously over the 
 whole range of intervening territory, and maintained a 
 constant intercommunication; or else there was at some 
 
 |J| 
 i I 
 
 I.'. 
 
h'J 
 
 ■i-f --^ 
 
 376 
 
 THE TOUCAN AND MANATEE. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 period a migration from the south, bringing with it charac- 
 teristic remains of the land from which it emanated. The 
 sculptures of the manatees are too exact to have been the 
 production of those who were not well acquainted with the 
 animal and its habits." Of the representations of the 
 toucan, the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 81) will furnish a 
 sufficient illustration. It is imitated with considerable 
 accuracy, though inferior to some of the finest specimens of 
 mound sculpture. The most important deviation from 
 correctness of detail is, that it has three toes instead of two 
 before, although the two are correctly represented behind. 
 It is stooping its head to take food from a rudely outlined 
 
 Fio. 81. — Toucan, Pipe-Sculiitui'e. 
 
 human hand ; and as it is known that the brilliant plumage 
 of the toucan leads to its being frequently tamed by the 
 natives of Guiana and Brazil, this tends not only to confirm 
 the idea of its representation by the sculptures in question : 
 but to suggest that the Mound-Builders may have had 
 aviaries, like those in which the Aztec caciques assembled 
 birds of splendid plumage and beautiful form from every 
 part of their Mexican empire. 
 
 Unless we assume such a lap^ic of time as may suffice 
 for important changes in the climate and fauna of the 
 Ohio Valley, the evidence thus far adduced suggests the 
 inference either that the whole extensive regions thus indi- 
 cated were occupied at some remote period by a common 
 race ; or we must recognise in such indications of famili- 
 arity with the natural history of the tropics, and even of 
 
XV.] 
 
 TRACES OF MIGRATION. 
 
 377 
 
 the southern continent, proof that that very people, who 
 derived all their metal from the great northern regions of 
 Lake Superior, had themselves migrated from southern 
 latitudes rich in metallic ores. 
 
 Various considerations tend to favour the idea of such a 
 migration, rather than the maintenance of intercommunica- 
 tion and exchange, among a people of the same race, through- 
 out regions so extensive and so geographically distinct. 
 If the Mound-Builders had some of the arts and models, 
 not only of Central but of Southern America : they also em- 
 ployed in their ingenious manufactures pearls and shells of 
 the Gulf of Florida ; obsidian from Mexico ; mica believed 
 to have been brought from the AUeghanies ; jade, such as 
 that described by Humboldt among the rare materials of 
 ancient manufacture in Chili ; the lead of Wisconsin ; and 
 the copper, and probably the silver, of Ontonagon and the 
 Keweenaw peninsula. The fact indeed that some of their 
 most elaborate carvings represent birds and quadrupeds 
 belonging to latitudes so far to the south, naturally tends to 
 suggest the idea of a central region where arts were culti- 
 vated to an extent unknown in the Mississippi Valley ; and 
 that those objects, manufactured where such models are 
 furnished by the native fauna, remain only as evidences of 
 ancient intercourse maintained between these latitudes and 
 the localities where now alone such are known to abound. 
 But in opposition to this, full value must be given to the 
 fact that neither the relics, nor the customs which they 
 illustrate, pertain exclusively to southern latitudes ; nor are 
 sucli found to predominate among the singular evidences of 
 ancient and more matured civilisation which abound in 
 Central and Southern America. The varied nature of the 
 materials employed in the arts of the Mound-Builders, we 
 must also remember, indicates a wide range of relations ; 
 though it cannot be assumed that these were maintained in 
 every case by direct intercourse. 
 
 The earlier students of American archoeology, like the 
 
J78 
 
 ASSUMED INDICATIONS. 
 
 [chap- 
 
 older school of British antiquaries, gave full scope to a 
 system of theorising which built up comprehensive ethno- 
 logical schemes on the very smallest premises ; but in the 
 more judicious caution of later writers there is a tendency 
 to run to the opposite extreme. Perhaps Messrs. Squier 
 and Davis indulge at times in an exaggerated estimate of 
 the merits of the remarkable works of art discovered and 
 published as the result of their joint labours ; but subse- 
 quent critics have either unduly depreciated them, or solved 
 the difficulties att'. ndant on such discoveries, by ascribing 
 their manufacture to an undetermined foreign source. Mr. 
 Schookraft specially manifested a disposition to underrate 
 the artistic ability discernible in some of them ; while Mr. 
 Haven, who fully admits their skilful execution, derives 
 from that very fact the evidence of foreign manufacture. 
 After describing the weapons, pottery, and personal orna- 
 ments obtained from the mounds, the latter writer adds, 
 " and, with these were found sculptured figures of animals 
 and the human head, in the form of pipes, wrought with great 
 delicacy and spirit from some of the hardest stones. The 
 last-named are relics that imply a very considerable degree 
 of art ; and if believed to be the work of the people with 
 whose remains they are found, would tend gTcatly to 
 increase the wonder that the art of sculpture among them 
 was not manifested in other objects and places. The fact 
 that nearly all the finer specimens of workmanship represent 
 birds, or land and marine animals belonging to a different 
 latitude ; while the pearls, the knives of obsidian, the marine 
 shells, and the copper equally testify to a distant, though 
 not extra- continental origin, may, however, exclude these 
 from being received as proofs of local industry and skilL"^ 
 
 A reconsideration of the list already given of animals 
 sculptured by the ancient pipe-makers, cannot fail to satisfy 
 the inquirer that it is an over-statement of the case to say 
 that nearly all belong to a different latitude. The real 
 
 <« ^ Archceology of the United Stittes, p. I'z2. 
 
XV.] 
 
 ANALOGOUS SCULPTUFES. 
 
 379 
 
 interest and diflSculty of the question lie in the fact of dis- 
 covering, along with so many sculptured figures of animals 
 pertaining to the locality, others represented with equal 
 spirit and fidelity, though belonging to diverse latitudes. 
 To those familiar with early Scandinavian and British 
 antiquities, such an assignment of the mound sculptures to 
 a foreign origin, on account of their models being in part 
 derived from distant sources, must appear a needless 
 assumption which only shifts without lessening the diffi- 
 culty. On the sculptured standing stones of Scotland- 
 belonging apparently to the closing <}ra of Paganism, and 
 the first introduction of Christianity there, — may be seen 
 the tiger or leopard, the ape, the camel, the serpent, and as 
 supposed by some, the elephemt and walrus, along with 
 other representations or symbols, borrowed, not like the 
 models of the Mound-Builders, from a locality so near as 
 to admit of the theory of direct commercial intercourse, or 
 recent migration, but from remote districts of Asia, or from 
 Africa. The most noticeable difference between the imita- 
 tions of foreign fauna on the Scottish monuments, and in 
 the ancient American sculptures, is that the former occa- 
 sionally betray, as might be expected, the conventional 
 characteristics of a traditional type ; while the latter, if 
 they furnish evidence of migration, would in so far tend to 
 prove it more recent, and to a locality not so distant as to 
 preclude all renewal of intercourse with the ancestral birth- 
 land. Traces of the same reproduction of unfamiliar objects 
 are, indeed, apparent in the mound sculptures. The objects 
 least truthfully represented, in some cases, are animals 
 foreign to the region where alone such works of art have 
 been found. But the South American toucan of the mound 
 sculptor, figured on a previous page, is certainly not inferior 
 to the accompanying specimens of the Peruvian modeller's 
 imitative skill, wrought on a vessel of black ware (Fig. 82), 
 now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scot- 
 land : though it will be remembered that the latter are the 
 
 l! 
 
 
 
38o 
 
 PERUVIAN /Mil \TIVE SKILL. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 *M 
 
 \ 
 
 work of an artist to whom the original may be presumed to 
 have been familiar. Several of the animals engraved in the 
 Ancient Monuments of the Mississijyin Valley fall far short 
 of the fidelity of imitation ascribed to them in the accom- 
 panying text : but the characteristic individuality of others 
 displays remarkable imitative power. The lugubrious ex- 
 pression given to more than one of the toads is full of 
 humour; and some of the ruder human heads may be 
 described as portrait-sketches in tiie style of Punch. But 
 after making every requisite deduction from the exaggera- 
 tions of enthusiastic observers, abundant evidence of artistic 
 
 Kid. 82.— Peruvittii Blttck Ware. 
 
 skill and ingenuity remains to justify the wonder that a 
 people capable of executing such works shoidd have left no 
 large monuments of their art. While, however, this affords 
 no sufficient ground for transferring their origin to another 
 region, we may still look with interest for the disco\ ery of 
 analogous productions in some of the great centres of native 
 American civilisation. 
 
 With one or two stray exceptions, objects precisely 
 similar to the mound sculptures have not hitherto been met 
 with, beyond the valleys where other traces of the Mound 
 Builders abound ; but the points of resemblance between 
 
XV.] 
 
 CARVED STO.YE MORTARS. 
 
 3*?f 
 
 the sculptured mound-pipes and numerous miniature stone 
 mortars found in Peru are too striking to be overlooked. 
 Of the two examples given here (Fig. 83), the one is a 
 llama, from Huarmachaco, in Peru, in the collection of the 
 Historical Society of New York. It is cut in a close- 
 grained black stone, and measures four inches long. The 
 other, of darkish brown schist, is from a drawing made by 
 Mr. Thomas Ewbank, while in Peru. The greater number 
 of those seen by him represent the llama and its congeners, 
 the alpaca, guanoco, and vicuna. They are all hollowed 
 preci,=«ftly like the bowl of the sculptured mound-pipes, but 
 
 Fio, 83.— reruvlan Stoiio Mortars. 
 
 have no lateral perforation or mouth-piece. Their probable 
 use was as mortars, in which the Peruvians rubbed tobacco 
 into powder, working it with a small pestle until it became 
 heated with the friction, when it was taken as snuff. The 
 transition from this practice to that of inhaling the burning 
 fumes is simple ; and the correspondence between the 
 ancient Peruvian tobacco-mortar and the stone pipe of the 
 Mound-Builder is worthy of note, when taken into con- 
 sideration alOiig with the imitations of birds of the southern 
 continent found among the sculptures of ihe mounds. Dr. 
 Tschudi describes four of the Peruvian mortars preserved 
 
382 
 
 NICOTIAN RELIGIOUS RITES. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 "\ 
 
 at Vienna, carved in porphyry, basalt, and granite ; and he 
 adds : " How the ancient Peruvians, without the aid of 
 iron tools, were able to carve stone so beautifully, is incon- 
 ceivable." 
 
 The absence of any but such miniature carvings in the 
 northern mounds may also merit notice when viewed in 
 connection with the ideas of religious worship suggested by 
 the contents of the mound altars. Idolatry, in its most 
 striking, and also in some of its most barbarous forms, pre- 
 vailed, as we know, among the nations of the Mexican 
 Valley, at the period of the Conquest The mcaments of 
 Yucatan and Central America leave no room to doubt that 
 the worship of such visible impersonations of Divine attri- 
 butes as their sculptors could devise formed a prominent 
 part of their religious services. Reference has also been 
 made in a previous chapter to rudely modelled and sculp- 
 tured idols, accompanying other ancient remains, in sepul- 
 chral deposits in Tennessee. Others have been found in 
 the huacals of Chiriqui, on the Isthmus of Panama, along 
 with numerous gold relics and many fine specimens ol 
 pottery. Those facts render it the more singuhir that, amid 
 so many traces of imitative sculpture, no relics obviously 
 designed as objects of worship have been dug up in the 
 mounds, or found in such circumstances as to connect them 
 with the religious practices of the Mound-Bnilders. But 
 the remarkable characteristics of the elaborately sculptured 
 pipes, and their obvious connection with services accom- 
 panying some of the rites of sacrifice or cremation, may 
 indicate their having played an important part in the 
 religious solemnities of the ancient race ; and on this the 
 arts and customs of modern tribes help to throw some 
 curious light. 
 
 So far as we can now infer from evidence furnished by 
 relics connected with the use of the tobacco-plant, it seemd 
 to have been as familiar to the ancient tribes of the North- 
 west, and the aborigines of the Canadian forests, as to those 
 
XV.] 
 
 INDIAN LEGENDS. 
 
 2>H 
 
 of the American tropics, of which the Nicotiana tabaciim 
 is a native. No such remarkable depusitories indeed have 
 been found to the north of the great lakes as those disclosed 
 to the explorers of the tumuli In the Scioto Valley ; but 
 even now the tobacco-pipe monopolises the ingenious art 
 of many tribes ; and some of their most curious legends 
 and superstitions are connected with the favourite national 
 implement. Among them the dignity of time-honoured 
 use has conferred on it a sacredness, which survives with 
 much of its ancient force ; and to this accordingly the 
 student of American antiquities is justified in turning, as a 
 link connecting the present with that ancient past. But it 
 is worthy of note that the form of the mound-pipes differs 
 essentially from the endless varieties of pattern wrought by 
 Indian ingenuity. Some consideration, therefore, of tho 
 arts of the modern pipe-sculptor, and of native customs and 
 traditions associated with the use of tobacco, is necessary, 
 as a means of comparison between ancient and modern races 
 of the New World. 
 
 In the Old World, the ideas connected with the tobacco- 
 pipe are prosaic enough. The chibouk may, at times, be 
 associated with the poetical reveries of the oriental day- 
 dreamer, and the hookah with pleasant fancies of the Anglo- 
 Indian reposing in the shade of his bungalow ; but its 
 seductive antique mystery, and all its symbolic significance, 
 pertain to the New World. Longfellow, accordingly, fitly 
 opens his Song of Hiawatha with the institution of " the 
 peace-pipe." The Master of Life descends on the mountains 
 of the prairie, breaks a fragment from the red stone of tho 
 quarry, and, ftishioning it with curious art into a pipe-head, 
 he fills it with the bark of the red willow, chafes the forest 
 into flame with the tempest of his breath, and kindling it, 
 smokes the calumet as a signal to the nations. The tribes 
 gjither at the divine summons from river, lake, and praiiic, 
 to listen to the warnings and promises with which the 
 Great Spirit seeks to guide them ; and this done, and the 
 
384 
 
 THE RED riPE-STONE QUARRY. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 warriors having buried their '.var-clubs, they smoke their 
 first peace-pipe, and depart : — 
 
 "While the Master of Life, ascending, 
 Through the opening of cloud-curtains, 
 Through the doorways of the heaven, 
 Vanished from before their faces 
 In the smoke that rolled around him. 
 The pukwana of the peace-pipe ! " 
 
 In this, ar, in other passages of his national epic, the 
 American poet has embodied cherished legends of the New 
 World : placing the opening scene of ITiaivatha on the 
 heights of the red pipe-stone quarry of Coteau des Prairies, 
 between the Mirmesota and Missouri rivers. 
 
 On the summit of the ridge between these two tributaries 
 of the Mississippi rises a bold cliff, beautifully^ marked with 
 horizontal layers of light grey and rose or flesh-coloured 
 quartz. From the base of this a level prairie of about half 
 a mile in width runs parallel to it ; and here it is that the 
 famous red pipe-stone is procured, at a depth of from four to 
 five feet from the surface, in a ravine at the head of the Pipe- 
 stone Creek, a tributary of the Big Sioux River. Numerous 
 excavations indicate the resort of Indian tribes to the 
 locality. " That this place should have been visited," says 
 Catlin, " for centuries past by all the neighbouring tribes, 
 who have hidden the war-club as they approached it, 
 and stayed the cruelties of the scalping-knife, under the 
 fear of the vengeance of the Gr^at Spirit who overlooks it, 
 will not seem strange or unnatural when their superstitions 
 are known. That such has been the custom there is not a 
 shadow of doubt, and that even so recently as to havt 
 been witnessed by hundreds and thousands of Indians of 
 different tribes now living, and from many of whom I have 
 personally drawn the information."^ 
 
 1 Illustraliona of the. Manners, etc., of the North American Indians, By fJoo. 
 (Jatlin. Eighth edition. Vol. ii. p. 107. Vide Proceed. Amer. Philosoph, Sue., 
 vol. X. p. 274. .. 
 
 't m 
 
XV.] 
 
 THE LEAPING-ROCK. 
 
 385 
 
 it, 
 the 
 
 it, 
 ons 
 ot a 
 avt 
 
 of 
 lave 
 
 Oeo. 
 
 The enterprising traveller speaks elsewhere of thousands 
 of inscriptions and drawings observed by him on the neigh- 
 bouring rocks ; while the feeling iu which they originate 
 was thus illustrated by an Indian whose portrait he painted 
 when in the Mandan country : — " My brother," said the 
 Mandan, " you have made my picture, and I like it much. 
 My friends tell me they can see the eyes move, and it 
 must be very good ; it must be partly alive. I am glad it 
 is done, though many of my people are afraid. I am a 
 young mnn, but my heart is strong. I have jumped on to 
 the Medicine Rock ; I have placed my arrow on it, and no 
 Mandan can take it away. The red stone is slippery, but 
 my foot was true ; it did not slip. My brother, this pipe 
 which I give to you I brought from a high mountain ; it is 
 towards the rising sun. Many were the pipes we brought 
 from thence, and we brought them away in peace. We 
 left our totems on the rocks ; we cut them deep in the 
 stones ; they are there now. The Great Spirit told all 
 nations to meet there in peace, and all nations hid the war- 
 club and the tomahawk. The Dahcotahs, who are our 
 enemies, are very strong ; they have taken up the toma- 
 hawk, and the blood of our warriors has run on the rocks. 
 We want to visit our medicines. Our pipes are old and 
 worn out." 
 
 The Medicine or Leaping-Rock, here referred to, is a de- 
 tached column standing between seven and eight feet from 
 the precipitous cliff ; and the leap across this chasm is a 
 daring feat which the young warriors are ambitious of per- 
 forming. It was pointed out to Catlin by a Sioux chief, 
 whose son had perished in "^hc attempt. A conical mound 
 marked the spot of his sepulture ; and though the sanctity 
 of this ancient neutral ground has been invaded, and the 
 Sioux now refuse to permit other tribes to have access to it, 
 this is of quite recent occurrence. The memorials of many 
 tribes on the graven rocks ; numerous excavations, sepul- 
 
 VOL. I. '""■■ ;---- -'-;^ "■^^'/; -■■;''■- '^■■-^^-■';^;;^ 2 b 
 
386 
 
 MANDAN TRADITIONS. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 chral mounds, and other earthworks in the vicinity ; and 
 the recovery from time to time, in chance excavations, or 
 in ancient ossuaries and grave-mounds, of pipes wrought 
 in the favourite material : all confirm the Indian tradition 
 that this had been recognised as neutral ground by the 
 tribes to the west, and many of those to the east of the 
 Mississippi, to which they have made regular pilgrimages 
 to renew their pipes from the rock consecrated by the foot- 
 prints of the Great Spirit. The marks of his footsteps are 
 pointed out, deeply impressed in the rock, and resembling 
 the track of a large bird 1 
 
 Mandan traditions respecting this sacred spot have a 
 special interest ; for the migrations of that once powerful 
 Indian nation have been traced from the country lying 
 between Lake Erie and Cincinnati, down the Valley of the 
 Ohio, over the graves of the ancient Mound-Builders, and 
 thence up the western branch of the Mississippi, until the 
 extinction of nearly the whole nation, by the ravages of the 
 small-pox, in the year 1838, at their latest settlements on 
 the Upper Missouri. The site of their last homes lies to 
 the north of the Sioux's country, in whose possession the 
 pipe-stone quarries are now vested by the law of the 
 strongest. To uhe Sioux, accordingly, the guardianship of 
 the traditions of the locality belongs. For, although they 
 have thus set at defiance its most sacred characteristic, and 
 so slighted the mandate of the Great Spirit, they do not 
 the less strongly hold by the superstitious ideas associated 
 with the spot. 
 
 One of these legends is connected with the peculiar fea- 
 tures of the scene. Five large granite boulders form pro- 
 minent objects on the level prairie in the vicinity of the 
 pipe-stone quarries ; and two holes under the largest of 
 them are regarded by the Sioux as the abodes of the 
 guardian spirits of the spot. Catlin, who broke off and 
 carried away with him fragments of these sacred boulders. 
 
XV.] 
 
 SIOUX LEGEND OF THE PEACE-PIPE. 
 
 387 
 
 fea- 
 
 pro- 
 
 ' the 
 
 jst of 
 
 the 
 
 and 
 
 Iders, 
 
 remarks : " As for the poor Indian, his superstitious venera- 
 tion of tliem is such, that not a spear of grass is ])roken or 
 bent by his feet within three or four roods of them, where 
 he stops, and, in humble supplication, by throwing plugs of 
 tobacco to them, solicits permission to dig and carry away 
 the red stone for his pipes." For here, according to Indian 
 tradition, not only the mysterious birth of the peace-pipe, 
 but the postdiluvian creation of man, took place. 
 
 The institution of the peace-pipe is thus narrated by the 
 Sioux : "Many ages after the red men were made, when 
 all the tribes were at war, the Great Spirit called them 
 together at the Red Rocks. He stood on the top of the 
 rocks, and the red nations were assembled on the plain 
 below. He took out of the rock a piece of the red stone, 
 and made a large pipe. He smoked it over them all ; told 
 them that it was part of their flesh ; that though they were at 
 war, they must meet at this place as friends ; that it belonged 
 to them all ; that they must make their calumets from it, 
 and smoke them to him whenever they wished to appease 
 him or get his goodwill. The smoke from his big pipe 
 rolled over them all, and he disappeared in its cloud. At 
 the last whifl" of his pipe a blaze of fire rolled over the 
 rocks and melted their surface. At that moment two 
 Indian maidens passed in a name under the two medicine 
 rocks, where they remain to this day. The voices of Tso- 
 mecostee and Tsomecostewondee, as they are named, are 
 heard at times in answer to the invocations of the suppliants, 
 jind they must be propitiated before the pipe-stone is taken 
 away." 
 
 An offering of tobacco is the usual gift, and it appears 
 to have been employed in similar acts of worship from 
 the earliest period of intercourse w^ith Europeans. In the 
 narrative of the voyage of Drake, in 1572, it is stated 
 that the natives brought a little basket made of rushes, and 
 filled with an herb which they called tohah. This was 
 
388 
 
 THE SACRED COCA-PLANT. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 regarded as a propitiatory offering ; and the writer subse- 
 quently notes : they " came now the second time to us, 
 bringing with them, as before had been done, feathers and 
 bags of tohak for presents, or rather, indeed, for sacrifices, 
 upon this persuasion that we were gods." Harriot in like 
 manner tells, in his " Briefe and True Ke^jort of the New 
 Found Land of Virginia," of a plant which the Spaniards 
 generally call tobacco, but there named by the natives 
 uppowoc. " This uppowoc is of so precious estimation 
 among them, that they think their gods are marvellously 
 delighted therewith, whereupon sometime they make hal- 
 owed fires, and cast some of the powder therein for a sacri- 
 fice. Being in a storme upon the waters, to pacific their 
 gods they cast some up into the aire, and into the water ; 
 so a weare for fis^> being newly set up, they cast some therein 
 jmd into the aire ; also after an escape of danger, they cast 
 some into the aire likewise ; but all done with strange ges- 
 tures, stamping, sometime dancing, clapping of hands, 
 holding up of hands, and staring up into the heavens, 
 uttering therewithal and chattering strange words a^ 1 
 noises. " 
 
 Such practices and ideas of propitiatory offerings among 
 southern Indian tribes of the sixteenth century, show that 
 the offerings of tobacco still made by the Sioux to the 
 spirits that haunt the pipe-stone quarry, are of no merely 
 local origin, but were anciently as universal as the peace- 
 pipe itself. Nor were such religious associations confined 
 to the favourite narcotic of the northern continent. Among 
 the Peruvians the coca-plant took the place of tobacco ; and 
 Dr. Tschudi states that he found it regarded by the Indians 
 as something sacred and mysterious. " In all ceremonies, 
 whether religious or warlike, it was introduced for produc- 
 ing smoke at the great offerings, or as the sacrifice itself. 
 During divine worship the priests chewed coca-leaves ; and, 
 unless they were supplied with them, it was believed that 
 
 
I' 
 
 lies, 
 iic- 
 lelf. 
 nd, 
 hat 
 
 XV.] KNISTENEAUX LEGEND OF THE DELUGE. 389 
 
 the favour of the gods could not be propitiated." Chris- 
 tianity, after an interval of upwards of three hundred years, 
 has not eradicated the Indian's faith in the virtues of the 
 sacred plant. In the mines of Cerro de Pasco, masticated 
 coca is thrown on the hard veins of metal to propitiate the 
 gnomes of the mine, who, it is believed, would otherwise 
 render the mountains impenetrable ; and leaves of it are 
 secretly placed in the mouth of the dead, to smooth the 
 passage to another world. Thus we find, in the supersti- 
 tions perpetuated among the Indians of the southern Cordil- 
 leras, striking analogies to those which survive among the 
 Sioux, and give character to the strange rites practised by 
 them at the red pipe-stone quarry, on the Coteau des 
 Prairies. 
 
 One of the Indian traditions connected with that locality, 
 whicli seems to perpetuate the idea of a general deluge, was 
 thus narrated by a distinguished Knisteneaux on the Upper 
 Missouri, on the occasion of presenting to Catlin a hand- 
 some red stone pipe : " In the time of a great freshet, which 
 took place many centuries ago, and destroyed all the nations 
 of the earth, all the tribes of the red men assembled on the 
 Coteau des Prairies, to get out of the way of the waters. 
 After they had g'^thered liere from every part, the water 
 continued to rise, until at length it covered them all in a 
 mass, and their flesh was converted into red pipe-stone. 
 Therefore, it has always been considered neutral ground ; it 
 belongs to all tribes alike, and all were allowed to get it 
 and smoke it together. While they were all drowning in 
 a mass, a young woman, Kwaptahw, a virgin, caught hold 
 of the foot of a very large bird that was flying over, and 
 was carried to the top of a high cliff not far off, that was 
 above the water. Here she had twins, and their father was 
 the war-eagle, and her children have since peopled the earth." 
 The idea that the red pipe-stone is the Hesh of their ances- 
 tors is a favourite one among different tribes. When Catlin 
 
 \\ 
 
390 INDICATIONS OF FORMER MIGRATIONS. [chap. 
 
 and his party attempted to penetrate to the sacred locality, 
 they were stopped by the Sioux, and one of them addressing 
 him, said : " This red pipe was given to the red men by 
 the Great Spirit. It is a part of our flesh, and therefore is 
 great medicine. AVe know that the whites are like a great 
 cloud that rises in the east, and will cover the whole country. 
 We know that they will have all our lands ; but if ever 
 they get our red-pipe quarry they will have to pay very 
 dear for it." Thus is it that even in the farthest West the 
 Indian feels the fatal touch of that white hand ; and to the 
 intrigues of interested traders is ascribed the encroachment 
 of the Sioux on the sabred neutral ground, where, within 
 memory of living men, every tribe on the Missouri had 
 smoked with their enemies, while the Great Spiiit kept the 
 peace among his red children. 
 
 Apart, then, from such indications of an artistic power of 
 imitation, by which the ancient pipe-sculptors are distin- 
 guished, it becomes an object of interest to observe other 
 elements, either of comparison or contrast, between the 
 memorials of the Mound-Builders' skill, and numerous speci- 
 mens of pipe-sculpture produced by modern tribes. 
 
 Notwithstiinding the endless variety which characterises 
 the ancient Mound-Builders' pipes, one general type is trace- 
 able through the whole. A curved base forms the stem and 
 handle, from the centre of which rises the bowl, as shown in 
 Fig. 78, so that it is complete as found ; whereas the modern 
 Indian generally employs a pipe stem, and ascribes to it the 
 peculiar virtues of the implement. The medicine-man 
 decorates it with his most elaborate skill, and it is regarded 
 with awe and reverence by the whole tribe. The stem 
 would seem, therefore, to be characteristic of the modern 
 race ; if indeed it be not the distinguishing memorial of an 
 origin of the Northern tribes diverse from Toltecan and 
 other ancient nations. One idea which such comparisons 
 suggest is that in the sacred associations with the pipe of 
 
XV.] 
 
 FA VO URITE MA TERIAL. 
 
 391 
 
 the Mound-Builders, we have indications of contact between 
 a migrating race of Central or Southern America, where no 
 superstitious pipe-usages have been found, and one of the 
 Northern tribes among whom such superstitions are most 
 intimately interwoven with all their sacred mysteries. 
 
 The utmost variety distinguishes the pipes of the modern 
 Indians : arising in part from the local facilities they possess 
 for a suitable material, and in part also from the special 
 style of art and decoration which has become traditioT^rl 
 with the tribe. The easily wrought red pipe-stone has been 
 generally sought after, from the beauty of its colour and 
 texture, as well as the mysterious virtues attached to it. 
 But the pipe-sculptures of many tribes can be distinguished 
 no less certainly by the material, than by the favourite con- 
 ventional pattern. 
 
 Among the Assinaboin Indians a fine marble, much too 
 hard to admit of minute carving, but susceptible of a high 
 polish, is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so 
 extremely thin, as to be nearly transparent. When lighted 
 the glowing tobacco shines through, and presents a singular 
 appearance at night, or in a dark lodge. Another favourite 
 stone is a coarse species of jasper, also too hard to admit of 
 elaborate ornamentation. But the choice of material is by 
 no means invariably guided by the facilities which the 
 position of the tribe affords. Mr. Kane informed me that, 
 in coming down the Athabaska river, when near its source 
 in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his Assinaboin guides 
 select the favourite bluish jasper from among the water- 
 worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry home for the 
 purpose of pipe manufacture, although they were then fully 
 five hundred miles from their lodges ; and my own Chip- 
 pewa guides carried off pieces from the pipe-stone rock, at 
 the mouth of the Neepigon river, though they had several 
 hundred miles to traverse before they would reach their 
 homes. Such traditional adherence to the choice of materials 
 
392 
 
 rWAHGUNEKA. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 peculiar to a remote source, as well as the perpetuation of 
 special forms and p^^Lterns, are of value as clews to former 
 migrations, and indications of affinity among scattered 
 tribes. 
 
 The Chippewas, at the head of Lake Superior, carve their 
 pipes out of a dark close-grained stone procured from Lake 
 Huron ; and frequently introduce groups of animals and 
 human figures with considerable artistic skill. Pabakmesad, 
 or the Flier, an old Chippewa, still living on the Great 
 Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, is generally known as 
 Pwahguneka, tiie Pipe Maker, literally " he makes pipes." 
 Though brought in contact with tlie Christian Indians of 
 the Manitoulin Islands, he resolutely adheres to the pagan 
 creed and rites of his fathers, and resists all encroachments 
 of civilisation. He gathers his materials from the favourite 
 
 Fig. 8-1.— Cliiiipewa Pijie. 
 
 resorts of different tribes, using the muhkuhda-pwahgunah- 
 bcck, or black pipe-stone of Lake Huron ; the wahbe-pwah- 
 gunahbeck, or white pipe-stone, procured on St. Joseph's 
 Isi nd ; and the misko-pwahgunahheck, ov red pipe-stone of 
 the Coteau des Prairies. His saw, with which the stone is 
 first roughly blocked out, is made of a bit of iron hoop ; and 
 his other tools are correspondingly rude. Nevertheless the 
 workmanship of Pabahmesad shows him to be a master of 
 his art ; as will be seen from a characteristic illustration of 
 his ingenious sculpture, engraved here (Fig. 84) from the 
 original, in the museum of the University of Toronto. 
 
XV.] 
 
 CHIMPSEYAN CUSTOMS. 
 
 393 
 
 But the most elaborate and curious specimens of pipe- 
 scalpture are those executed by the Chimpseyan or Babeen 
 Indians, who also carve skilfully in wood and b(«iie. They 
 display much ingenuity in grass-plaiting lor hats and 
 waterproof Ijaskets, or kettles ; and in the manufacture of 
 basket-nets of wicker-work, with which they catch the 
 ulikon, a kind of smelt aljundant in the rivers along their 
 coast. They are, indeed, pre-eminent among the savages of 
 the North Pacific coast for artistic skill ; yet to all appear- 
 ance, in the collision with the whites, their extermination 
 is inevitable at no distant date. The ftontispi' ;c Plate i. 
 illustrates the characteristic physiognomy of this people. 
 It is the portrait of Kaskatachyih, a Chimpseyan chief, 
 from sketches taken by Mr. Paul Kane, while travelling 
 in their country. He wears one of the native hats made of 
 dyed and plaited grass. The Chimpseyans belong to the 
 
 Fio. 85.— Babeen Pipe. 
 
 Thlinket stock, tribes of which extend as far north as 
 Behring Bay. They do not feast on the whale, because it 
 is one of their tribal totems ; but the blubber of the por- 
 poise and seal is a favourite delicacy. The Babeens or big- 
 lip Indians, — as the Chimpseyans are most frequently 
 called, — have received this name from the deformation of 
 the under lip in the women of the tribe, produced by the 
 insertion of a piece of wood into a slit made in infancy, 
 and increased in size until the lip protrudes like the bill of 
 a duck ; and among the wooden masks which they carve 
 of life-size, this protruding lip is the invariable character- 
 
394 
 
 CHIMPSEYAN ART. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 istic of tho::e of the women. Other and not less singular 
 customs mark the distinction between the sexes, and are 
 perpetuated even after death. Their women a'-e wrapped 
 in mats and placed on an elevated platform, or in a canoe 
 raised on poles, while the bodies of the males are invariably 
 burned. The Chimpseyans and the Clalam Indians, occu- 
 pying Vancouver's Island and the coasts in the neighbour- 
 hood of Charlotte's Sound, carve bowls, platters, and other 
 utensils out of a blue claystone or slate, from which also 
 they make their pipes, and decorate them with many in- 
 genious and grotesque devices. One of the smaller and 
 simpler of these pipes, shown in Fig. 85, is placed here along- 
 side of a chef-d'oeuvre of Pabahmesad, the Chippewa artist. 
 Nothing could better serve to illustrate the contrast between 
 the ingenious imitative art of Algonquin pipe- sculpture and 
 the exuberant fancifulness of the Babeen carvings. Large 
 and complicated designs are common, sometimes inlaid with 
 bone or ivory, and embracing every native or foreign object, 
 adapted to the sculptor's fancy. The same talent for carv- 
 ing finds room for its display on their ivory combs ; and on 
 ladles and spoons made from the horns of a mountain goat, 
 which is one of the principal animals that they hunt on 
 land. The claystone carvings of strictly native design 
 chiefly occur on their pipe-sculptures, and consist of human 
 figures, and of strange monstrosities intermingling human 
 and brute forms, in which curious analogies may frequently 
 be traced to the sculptures of Central America. But the 
 powers of observation and imitation are most strikingly 
 illustrated in claystone carvings of objects c^ foreign origin. 
 The collections formed by the United States Exploring Ex- 
 pedition, now at Washington, include numerous specimens 
 of this class, representing Europe in houses, forts, boats, 
 horses, and fire-arms ; and reproducing in minute detail the 
 cords, pulleys, and other minutiae of the shipping which 
 frequent the coast. The example shown in Fig. 86 is a 
 
 
XV.] 
 
 BABEEN Car VING. 
 
 395 
 
 curious combination of native and foreign elements; and 
 may be regarded as the conventional representation by the 
 native artist of a bear hunt in the vicinity of one of the 
 Hudson Bay Company's stations. The animal-heads on some 
 of the human figures represent the grotesque masks already 
 referred to as among their favourite carvings, and a special 
 branch of native art. They are executed in wood, the size 
 of life, and brilliantly coloured ; and are worn in the grand 
 dances of the tribe. 
 
 In some of the larger pipes, the entire group presents 
 much of the grotesque exuberance of fancy, mingled with 
 imitations from nature, which constitute the charm of 
 ecclesiastical sculptures of the thirteenth century. Figures 
 in the oddest varieties of posture are ingeniously interlaced, 
 
 
 Fio. 80.— Diiboou ripe-Sciiliiturc. 
 
 and connected by elaborate ornaments; the intermediate 
 spaces being perforated, so as to give great lightness to the 
 whole. But though well calculated to recall the quaint 
 products of the medieval sculptor's chisel, sucli comparisons 
 are not suggested by any imitation of European models. 
 Their style of art is thoroughly American ; and traits of 
 the same peculiar devices and modes of thought wliicli 
 mark some of the most finished sculptures of Yucatan are 
 replete with interest, when thus recognised in regions so 
 remote, and in the productions of rude Indian tribes. 
 
 But while the modern Indian thus rivals in the elabor- 
 ateness of his art the ingenious pipe-sculpture of the 
 
 
396 
 
 THE MEDICINE PIPE-STEM. 
 
 [chap, 
 
 mounds, all his superstitious reverence is reserved for the 
 pipe-stem. On it depends the safety of the tribe in peace, 
 and its success in war. It is guarded accordingly with 
 jealous care, and produced at the medicine dance or 
 the war-council with mysterious ceremonies. Even on 
 such great occasions, so long as the medicine pipe-stem is 
 used, it is a matter of indifference whether the bowl 
 attached to it be of the richest carving, or a common 
 trader's clay pipe. Many special privileges and honours 
 pertain to its bearer. It is not only disrespectful, but 
 unlucky, to pass between him and the fire. An ornamental 
 tent is provided for his use, and his other official accoutre- 
 ments are so numerous that frequently he requires to main- 
 tain several horses for their transport. A bear skin robe is 
 employed for wrapping up the consecrated pipe-stem, and 
 thus enveloped, it is usually L>or* ^ ^y the favourite wife of 
 the dignitary. But it is never allowed to be uncovered in 
 her presence ; and should a woman, even by chance, cast 
 her eyes on it, its virtues can only be restored by a tedious 
 ceremony. 
 
 Among the Indian portraits executed by Mr. Paul Knne, 
 is one of Kea-keke-sacowaw, head chief of the Crees, whom 
 he met on the Saskatchewan, engaged in raising a war-party 
 against the Blackfeet. He had with him eleven medicine 
 pipe-stems, the pledges of different bands tliat had joined him. 
 The grim old chief appears decorated i":!) his war-paint, 
 and holding in his hand one of the pipt . /n.8 adorned with 
 the head and plumage of an eagle. BoJ i beginning his 
 work, the artist had to witness the ccemony of " opening 
 the medicine pipe-stem," in the course of which he smoked 
 each of the eleven pipes ; and, thus enlisted in the cause, 
 his painting was esteemed a great medicine, calculated to 
 contribute materially to the success of the war-party. 
 
 A young Cree Half-breed confessed to the painter that, in 
 
 a spirit of daring scepticism, he had once secretly thrown 
 
XV.] 
 
 INDIAN EXPIATORY SACRIFICES. 
 
 down the medicine pipe-stem and kicked it about ; but soon 
 after, its official carrier was slain, and such misfortunes 
 followed as. left no doubt on his mind of the sanctity 
 pertaining to this guardian and avenger of the honour of 
 the tribe. 
 
 But all the ideas and superstitions which such usages 
 illustrate, are peculiar to the modern Indians. The pipes 
 of the Mound-Builders show that they used no pipe-stem ; 
 and the same appears to have been the case with the Mexi- 
 cans before the Conquest. Throughout the whole of T^ord 
 Kingsborough's great work, traces of the use of the tobacco 
 pipe are rare ; and where they do occur they tend to confirm 
 the idea that it was not invested, either in Mexico or Central 
 America, with such sacred attributes as were attached to 
 it by the ancient race of the Mississippi Valley : and which, 
 luider other but no less peculiar forms, are maintained 
 among the Indian tribes of the North-west. 
 
 Various early writers on the customs of the American 
 Indians refer to expiatory sacrifices, which present striking, 
 though rude analogies, to the ancient offerings by fire on 
 the mound-altars. Hearne describes a custom among the 
 Cliippewas, after the shedding of blood, of throwing all 
 their ornaments, pipes, etc., into a common fire, kindled at 
 some distance from their lodges ; and Winslow narrates of 
 the Nanohiggansets of New England, that they had a great 
 house ordinarily resorted to by a few, whom he supposes to 
 be priests ; but he adds, " Thither, at certain times, resort 
 all their people, and offer almost all the riches they have to 
 their gods, as kettles, skins, hatchets, beads, knives, etc , all 
 which are cast by the priests into a great fire that they 
 make in the midst of the house. "^ The analogies, however, 
 which appear to be traceable in such practices of tribes 
 remote from the localities of the old Mound-Builders, are 
 after all slight, and lack the most important elements 
 
 . * il/os<i. //w<. Co^/., Sccouci Scries, vol. ix. p. 04. 
 
398 
 
 NICOTIAN RITES 
 
 [chap. 
 
 which give a special character to the ancient mound-altars. 
 The use of tobacco is no longer a characteristic peculiar to 
 the New World ; hut it may be that in the mode of indul- 
 ging in its favourite narcotic, we have perpetuated as a 
 practice of mere sensual indulgence, what was once a solemn 
 rite associated with the mysterious worship of the sacred 
 enclosures and the altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley. 
 Oviedo, who is the earliest authority, at least for any 
 minute account of tobacco -smoking among the native 
 tribes, speaks of it as an evil custom practised among the 
 Indians of Hispaniola to produce insensibility ; and greatly 
 prized by the Carribees, who called tobacco kohiha, and 
 " imagined, when they were drunk with the fumes of it, 
 the dreams they had were in some sort inspired."* Again, 
 Girolamo Benzoni narrates in his travels in America, recently 
 translated from the edition of 1753 by Rear- Admiral 
 Smyth : " In La Espaiiola, and the other islands, when their 
 doctors wanted to cure a sick man, they went to the place 
 where they were to administer the smoke, and when he was 
 thoroughly intoxicated by it the cure was mostly effected. 
 On returning to his senses, he told a thousand storico of his 
 having been at the council of the gods, and other high 
 visions. 
 
 Many Indian legends ascribe a divine origin to tobacco. 
 A chief of the Susquehannas told of two hunters of the tribe 
 sharing the venison they had cooked with a lovely squaw, 
 who suddenly appeared to them ; and on returning to the 
 scene of their feast thirteen moons after, they found the 
 tobacco plant growing where she had sat. Harriot, who 
 sailed in Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition of 1584, states 
 that the Indians of Virginia regarded tobacco as a means 
 of peculiar enjoyment, in which the Great Spirit was wont 
 freely to indulge, and that he bestowed it on them that 
 
 ' JJialorin Ooneral de Ian JudidK, aecontl edit. p. 74. 
 
 ^ Il'mlory qf the New World. By Oirolanio Beuzoui. Hakluyt Society, 1857. 
 
XV.] 
 
 OF DIVINATION. 
 
 399 
 
 they might share in his delights. Repeated aUusions also 
 refer to its intoxicating effects as an influence analogous to 
 that which produced the visions and inspirations of their 
 fasting dreams. It seems, therefore, by no means impro- 
 bable, that the original practice of inhaling the fumes of 
 tobacco was associated exclusively with superstitious rites 
 and divination ; so that the tobacco-plant may have played 
 a part in the worship of the ancient Mound-Builders, 
 analogous to that of the inspiring vapour over which the 
 Delphic tripod was placed, when the priestess of Apollo 
 prepared to give utterance to the divine oracles. 
 
 END OF VOL. r. 
 
 PRINTKD nV T. AND A. CdNHTAUI.K, PKINTEUH TO IIKK MAJ^TY, 
 AT THE KDINUUROII UNIVKUHITV PKEH8.