Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World

co and to the plains and mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, what would be more natural than that these adventurous navigators, passing around the shores of the Gulf, should, sooner or later, discov

ions where the severity of the climate would prevent gre

isely those which we find to have existe

lements and greatest works were near the Mississippi and its tributaries. Says Foster ("Prehi

." ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 28.) This would indicate that the civilization of this people advanced up the Mississippi River and spread out over its tributaries, but did not cross the Alleghany {sic} Mountains. They reached, however, far up the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, and thence into Oregon. The head-waters of the Missouri became one of their great centres of population; but their chief sites were upon the Mississippi

of Cahokia, which may be selected as a type of their works: it rises ninety-seven feet high, while its square sides are 700 and 500 feet respectively. There was a terrace on the south side 160 by 300 feet, reached by a graded way; the sum

d tumuli, and from one thousand to fifteen hundred enclosures. Their mounds were not cones but four-sided pyramids-their s

ng surface of the country. One large enclosure comprises exactly forty acres. At Hopetown, Ohio, are two walled figures-one a square, the other a circle-each containing precisely twenty acres. They must have

an accurate square of the great dimensions above represented, measuring, as they do, more than four-fifths of a mile in circumf

n the arms of a skeleton have been found to be of uniform size, measurin

One work, Fort Ancient, on the Little Miami River, Ohio, has a circuit of between four and five miles; the embankmen

mids of Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, but a very singular structure is repeated in Ohio and Peru: I refe

NEAR PIK

hern line of New York diagonally across the country, through Central and Nor

GRAN-CH

e north-east the savage races came who

n of the cross and pyramid. (See p. 334

PYRAMID MO

s is a threefold symbol, like a bird's foot; the central mound is 155 feet long, and the other two each 110 feet it length

made sun-dried bricks mixed with straw; they worked in copper, silver, lea

acelets, rings, etc., are found in very many of them strikingly similar to those of the Bronze Age in Europe. In one

sheets, no thicker than paper, wrapped over copper or stone ornaments so neatly as almost to escape detection. The great esteem in which they held a me

lic lustre, the overlapping edges so well polished as to be scarcely discoverable. Beads and st

the State of New York. (See Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 254, note.) Professor Foster ("Prehistoric Races," p. 259) also proves that the ancient pe

in sinking a well within the trench of the ancient works at Circleville. There can be no doubt it w

that the Mound Builders were acquainted with the use of iron, or that their plating wa

which seems to have refuted these opinions. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, i

ss the face of each. On the back side, opposite the depressed portion, is a copper rivet or nail, around which are two separate plates by which they were fastened to the leather. Two small pieces of leather were found lying between the plates of one of the bosses; they resemble the skin of a mummy, and seem to have been pres

es, from their appearance, composed the lower end of the scabbard, near the point of t

Marietta covered with large trees. It seems to have been made for this single personage, as this skeleton alone

enuine relics of the Mound Builders, it must, at the same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult art of plating one metal upon another. There is but one alternative, viz., that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people advanced in the arts, from whom these articles were obtained. Again,

ers. There were found deep excavations, with rude ladders, huge masses of rock broken off, also numerous stone tools, and all the evidences of extensive and long-continued labor. It is even

bility of iron. They possessed various mechanical contrivances. They were very probably acquainted with the lathe. Beads of shell

ls and the tusks of some animal. "Several of these," says Squier, "still retain their polish, and bear marks whi

posed of a compact variety of slate. This stone cuts with great clearness, and receives a fine though not glaring polish. The tube under notice is thirteen inches long by one and one-tenth in diameter; one end swells slightly, and the other terminates in a broad, flattened, triangular mouth-piece of fine proportions, which is carved with mathematical precision. It is drilled throughout; the bore is seven-tenths of an inch in diamete

some fossil teeth found in one of the mounds the stri

t-tempered knife, we are forced to conclude that they possessed that singular proce

lar in shape to our own, with th

ave also been found, with chis

the mound pottery, that the ancient people possessed the simple approximation toward the potter's wh

ptiles, and the faces of men, carved from various kinds of stones, upon the bowls of pipes, upon toys,

in miniature figures of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. All of them are executed with strict fidelity to nature, and with exquisite skill. Not only are the features of the objects faithfully represented, but their peculiarities and habits are in some degree exhibited.... The two heads here presented, intended to represent the eagle

UNDS OF THE

shuttle-like tablets, used in weaving. There have also been found numerous musical pipes, with mout

ame, and lovers

n language; a

nts of unreme

soft wind

n Ohio, we find accurate representations of the lamantine, manatee, or sea-cow-found to-day on the shores of Florida, Brazil, and Central America-and of the toucan, a tropic

nd five hundred years old; from the pyramids and the catacombs of Egypt both mummied and unmummied crania have been taken, of still higher antiquity, in

t on the western continent from a vast antiquity. Maize, tobacco, quinoa, and the mandi

37) remarks, 'Several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care. What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and lost all resemblance to its original form?

ning of the tibia; and this peculiarity is found to be present in an exaggera

as there is no good reason why their builders should have avoided erecting them on that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all t

the works of the Mound Builders and those of the Stone and Bro

29 and A.D. 231, under the name of Nahuas. They called the region they left in the Mississippi Valley "H

actures of the Mound Builders may have been made on the spot; and as they had no tin within their territory they used copper alone, except, it may be, for such tools as were needed to carve stone, and these, perhaps, were hardened with tin. It is known that the Mexicans possessed the art of manufacturing true bronze; and the in

connection of the Mound B

stern, over-sea origin; while the many evidences of their race identity with the ancient Peruvians indicate that they were part

nd their works of stone and bronze, with t

unds, kindred to the pyramids of Cent

int to an intercourse with the regions around the G

y of the Mississippi, and were apparently densest at those points where a populat

country, or when Atlantis sank in the sea, they retreated in the direction whence they came, and fell back upon their

the Mound Builders, kept a perpetual fire burning before an alta

ular relic exhibits what appears to be a sacrificial mound with a fire upon it; over it are the sun, moon, and stars, and above these a mass of hieroglyphics which bear some resemblance to the letters of European alphabets, and especially to that unknown alphabet which appe