Newton Horace Winchell

“ Deep gorges reveal multitudes of fragments of rock frozen into the ice, and occasional bands of dirt and gravel embraced in the solid ice. The surface is everywhere dirty, or perhaps muddy, from the wasting away of the surface of the glacier. He meets frequent openings, in which generally water may be seen or heard. Into these gorges the débris slides down the sloping sides, increasing the insecurity of his footsteps. Still farther south, the general surface is covered with a pulpy earth, mingled with stones and bowlders. The ice is evidently much attenuated. ”

“ This fact, taken with a sentiment that has exalted the builders of the mounds to a stage of civilization far in advance of that evinced by the commonalty of the savage races of North America as they exist in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has erected a barrier between the Indian and the mound-builder, which, though wholly imaginary when subjected to close analysis, is so great that they have been regarded either as misinformed, or rash, who have ventured to question its validity. ”

“ The individual layers are separated by thinner layers of fine sand. Those of clay are usually about two inches in thickness, but may be no more than one-eighth of an inch; the layers of sand are rarely more than half an inch in thickness, and are apt to be less than an eighth. The aggregate thickness of these alternating layers of clay and sand is sometimes a hundred feet or more. Let it be noticed that these areas of clay subsoil are those in which there is a gentle descent, and drainage to the north or northeast into some one of the great interior lakes of fresh water. ”

“ It is plainly one of glacier-drift. In some places he will find the various parts, such as gravel-stones, sand, clay, and bowlders, confusedly mingled, showing no assortment or stratification. The clay which has resulted from the grinding action of the glacier on the surface on which it lay, from dust blown over the ice by violent winds, as in the Alps, and from the sediment washed on the ice from the higher knobs that first became uncovered, fills all the interstices so closely as to make of the mass an impervious and uniform hard-pan. ”

“ Finally, coming within the scope of modern history, the construction, at the order of the English Government, of a mound of earth on the plains of Waterloo, attests the tenacity of that sentiment of veneration for the dead who die in the service of their country, and the persistence of a practice, which seems to be common to all mankind and to have survived from prehistoric times, of resorting to the mound of earth, as being at once the easiest made and the most enduring monument in memory of the departed. ”

“ At the present day but few geologists can be found in this country who do not admit the reality of the glacial epoch.
But, while it is true that but few geologists can be found in this country who do not admit the truth of the glacier theory of Prof. Agassiz, it is also true that a great many, perhaps the majority, also adhere to the iceberg theory of Peter Dobson. The two theories at first came in violent conflict. They diverged at the outset. One required the continent below the ocean, and the transportation of bowlders and other drift by floating ice ”

“ We come now to consider the most interesting as well as the most difficult points in the genetic relationship of the Indian and the mound-builder. These are the existence of the mounds, the mining
of copper, and the use of copper implements. The Indian, it is said, knows nothing of the mound—that is, nothing of its origin. He also avers, at the present time, that he knows nothing about the copper knives, axes, and arrow-points that are shown him. ”

“ From the foregoing it appears that every known trait of the mound-builder was possessed also by the Indian at the time of the discovery of America. It hence becomes unnecessary to appeal to any other agency than the Indian. It is poor philosophy and poor science that resorts to hypothetical causes when those already known are sufficient to produce the known effects. The Indian is a known adequate cause. ”

“ It is probably true that throughout the greater portion of the Northwest they are entirely wanting, and that feature of the drift prevails which will next be considered. They are mentioned here because they constitute an essential part of the drift, and must not be overlooked in giving its character and composition.
By the first, here denominated a clay subsoil, is not meant a gravelly clay, or one in which stones are present. It is, rather, a close, plastic, fine clay, with little observable sand. It is impervious to water, and is benefited by artificial drainage. ”

“ They exhibited all other characteristics common to mankind in an uncivilized state. The denial of their resort to mound-building, for the same purposes as other tribes in similar circumstances, carries with it the necessity to account for such an anomalous exception.
It is often stated that the Indian, when interrogated concerning the mounds and earthworks of the country, shakes his head in ignorance, affirming that he knows not their origin. This fact is carried further than it should be when it is invoked to prove the non-Indian origin of these mounds. ”

“ A general movement is developed by reason of the gravity of the mass, the fracturing and regelation of its parts, and the molecular forces that allow it to yield under pressure. Each recurring summer develops more or less water. This water perhaps enters the openings and crevasses, and washes out some of the obstructions, facilitating the general progress. The main water-sheds separating valleys serve also as ice-sheds. The valleys are more rapidly dug out by the rasping and ploughing movement of the glacier than are the highlands. In the valleys the ice flows most rapidly. ”

“ The gravel prevails in wooded and rolling districts. In treeless districts the sandy element is more common, making a black loam. In valleys and along streams the soil is alluvial. It is invariably fine, nearly free from stones and bowlders, and very fertile. It is what is popularly known as "made land," and comprises those parts of the drift of the highlands that are susceptible of transportation by running water. ”

“ The ice-mantle becomes continental in its extent. Its thickness reaches hundreds of feet. Toward the pole this may be increased to thousands or tens of thousands. It has a great weight. It presses upon itself. Its lower portions yield to the inequalities of the rocky surface. The mass seeks the valleys. It slides down the mountain-sides, carrying the débris which it detaches in its descent. It covers the broad plains. The accumulations toward the north, ever increasing, press out toward the south, the foot of the ice-sheet. ”

“ Jones says, in conclusion, "In a word, we do not concur in the opinion, so often expressed, that the mound-builders were a race distinct from and superior in art, government, and religion, to the Southern Indians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." Bradford, in "American Antiquities and Researches," affirms that "from very respectable authority it appears that many tribes still continue to this day to raise a tumulus over the grave, the magnitude of which is proportioned to the rank and celebrity of the deceased." ”

“ Now, when a glacier, propelled by a force exerted far to the north, meets with a gentle slope toward the north, the water which issues from its foot Will be confined in a lake about the foot of the ice, and will rise to the height of the lowest outlet. ”

“ Anthony, many of the bowlders embraced in No. 2 are conspicuously glacier-marked, a circumstance which plainly indicates the agency which transported and deposited the whole mass in which they occur.
No 3—The great deposit that follows No. 2, whether it be of clay or of gravel and sand, is that designated in common usage "hard-pan." It constitutes the chief member of the drift throughout the Northwest. It is rarely found entirely wanting, whereas the foregoing are very often wanting. ”

“ The sand or gravel constituting the subsoil in these rolling tracts is, like the clay of the clay subsoil, stratified and assorted. But the layers here are rarely horizontal. They show the most various alternation and change of dip. No two sections could be taken that would give the same succession of parts. The sand sometimes lies in heavy deposits fifteen or twenty feet thick, with lines of deposition running in curving and vanishing layers in all directions. Sudden transitions occur from sand to gravel, or from gravel to bowlders. Sometimes, also, bowlders are found embedded in the gravel ”

“ The practice of mound-building not being distinctive of any race, tribe, or epoch of the human family, it may be considered not at all unlikely that the aboriginal tribes of America, perhaps without exception, had their ceremonies and habits of burial, if not other rites of a sacred character, in one way and another associated with the erection of mounds of earth. ”

“ This higher stage may, however, be explained by referring it to the large increase of water incident to the melting of the glacier only after reaching the latitude of a warmer climate. The terraces have not, moreover, in the Northwest, generally that system or uniformity of height and arrangement necessary to warrant their reference to successive reductions in the volume of water, but are usually due to a variable resistance offered by the banks or rocks in which they occur, arising from their stratification.
No well-authenticated fossil remains from the hard-pan drift have yet been met with. ”

“ Following are a few quotations from early journals and histories that seem to demonstrate not only that the Indians used and mined native copper, but that they also erected mounds of earth, or of stones, in commemoration of their honored dead, and for sepulture. The Indian is a dull utilitarian. ”

“ It would not be improbable that, near the southern margin of the icefield, the remains of vegetation, and even of animals, should be involved in the drift undergoing transportation, but their structures are too fragile to withstand the grinding incident to the general progress of the ice, and would not bear transportation from northern latitudes. ”

“ Cloth of equal fineness is still made by several of the Indian tribes, particularly by the Navajoes of New Mexico; and nearly all of the tribes are known to have had mats and even carpets, woven of various sedges or of bast-fibers. They are still made by the Chippewa Indians in northern Minnesota.
The sculptured objects taken from the mounds, even those of the human face, are generally cut in some very soft stone, or are made of clay. They are equaled in skill and design by the sculptured pipes ”

“ A single observation at the pits at once places them later than the last glacial epoch. The dirt that they moved lies on the drift-clay. This is shown by the subjoined diagrammatic sketch taken on the spot (Fig. 7) . It is also shown by the fact that some of the pits are but a few feet above the present lake-level (about thirty feet) ; since during the period of the drift, and particularly toward its close, the interior lakes and rivers of the North American Continent were much higher than they are now.
It has been agreed for some years, by American archaeologists, that ”

“ The term mound-builders is distinctively applied to the race that constructed the remarkable earthworks of the valley of the Ohio, and of the interior of the United States in general, but it is true that in nearly all parts of the world the practice of mound-building has prevailed, sometimes among nations that come within historical epochs. ”

“ As this conclusion is at variance with the generally accepted opinion, it will be necessary to consider some of the characteristics of the mound-builders, as stated by the highest authorities, and to compare them with the known peculiar habits and customs of the Indians:
1. Squier and Davis state that "there probably existed among the mound-builders a state of society something like that which prevailed among the Indians; each tribe had its separate seat, maintaining, with its own independence, an almost constant warfare against its neighbors" ("Smithsonian Contributions," vol. i, p. 44) . ”

“ The fact that the aborigines worked stone, using stone axes, arrowheads, disks, wedges, hammers, pestles, and scrapers, is authenticated not only by the testimony of early writers, but also by the continuance of the same custom nearly if not quite up to the present time among some of the most inaccessible tribes of North America, though they have almost wholly ceased to be used, in consequence of the metallic implements furnished them by the whites. ”

“ Occasionally, however, the workmen seem to have gathered rounded stones of other varieties of rock, though nothing equaling the firmness of the above, and so fit for the purpose of a rude hammer in simple mining, can be selected among all the rocks of the region. ”