were ever made. Some of the trees of these forests have a positive antiquity of from six
to eight hundred years. They are found surrounded with thé mouldering remains of
others, undoubtedly of equal original dimensions, but now fallen and almost incorporated
with the soil. Allow a reasonable time for the encroachment of the forest* after all the works
were abandoned by their builders, and for the period intervening between that event and
the date of their construction, and we are compelled to assign them no inconsiderable antiquity.
^But, as already observed,. the forests covering these works correspond in all
respects with the surrounding forests ; thé same varieties of trees are found, in the same
proportions, and they have a like primitive aspect. This fact was remarked by the late
President Harrison, and was put forward by him as one of the strongest evidences of the
high' antiquity of these works. In an address before the Historical Society of Ohio, he
said : —-
“ ‘ The process by which nature restores the forest to its original state, after being once
cleared, is extremely slow. The rich lands of the West are indeed soon covered again, but
the character of the growth is entirely different, and continues so for a long period. In
several places upon the Ohio, and upon the farm which I occupy, clearings were made in
the first settlement of the country, and subsequently abandoned and suffered to grow up.
Some of these new forests arye now, sure, of fifty years’ growth ; but they have made so
little progress towards attaining the appearance of the immediately contiguous forest, as
to induce any man of reflection to determine that at least ten times fifty years must elapse
before their complete assimilation can be effected. We find, in the ancient works, all that
variety of trees which give such unrivalled beauty to our forests, in natural proportions.
The first growth, on the same kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to nature, on
the contrary, is nearly homogeneous, often stinted to one or two, at most three, kinds of
timber. If the ground has been cultivated, the yellow locust will thickly spring up ; if
not cultivated, the black and white walnut will be the prevailing growth. . . . Of what
immense age, then, must be the works so often referred to, covered, as they are, by at
least the second growth after the primitive-forest state was regained? ’*•
. “ It is not undertaken to assign a period for the assimilation here indicated to take place.
It must, however, be measured by centuries.
“ In respect to the extent of territory occupied at one time, or at successive periods, by
the race of the mounds, so far as indicated by the occurrence of their monuments, little
need be said, in addition to the observations presented in the first chapter. It cannot, however,
have escaped notice, that the relics found in the mounds—composed of materials peculiar
to places separated as widely as the ranges of the Alleghanies on the east, and the
Sierras of Mexico on the west, the waters of the great lakes on the north, and those of the
Gulf of Mexico on the south — denote the contemporaneous existence of communication
between these extremes. For we find, side by side, in the same mounds, native copper
from Lake Superior, mica from the Alleghanies, shells from the Gulf, and obsidian (perhaps
porphyry) from Mexico. This fact seems to conflict; seriously with the hypothesis of a
migration, either northward or southward. Further and more extended investigations and
observations may, nevertheless, serve satisfactorily to settle, not only this, but other equally
interesting questions, connected with the extinct race, whose name is lost to tradition itself,
and whose very existence is left to the sole and silent attestations of the rude, but oft imposing
monuments, which throng the. valleys of the West.”
A dispassionate review, of the evidences thus cursorily presented,
in support of the contemporaneousness of American races with those
first recorded on the monuments of the eastern world, when taken
together, ought, we think, to satisfy any unprejudiced mind. Nor
can anything he twisted out of the Jewish records to show that, at
the time when many races were already formed in the old Levant,
at least one distinct type of man did not exist on the Western Continent.
But, to our minds, stronger than all other reasonings, not excepting
the antithesis of languages, is that drawn from the antiquity
of skulls.
The vertical occiput, the prominent vertex, the great interparietal
diameter, the low defective forehead, the small internal capacity of
the skull, the square or rounded form, the quadrangular orbits, the
massive maxillae, are peculiarities which stamp the American groups,
more especially the Toltecan family, and distinguish them widely
from any other races of the earth, ancient or modem.
As before remarked, these characters are seen to some extent in all
Indians: although the savage tribes exhibit a greater development
of the posterior portion of the brain than the Toltees1— thus supplying,
in Natural History, the link of organism which assimilates the
Barbarous septs of America to the savage races of the Old World.
An interesting fact was mentioned to us by an American officer,
of high standing, who accompanied our army in its march through
Mexico during the late war. Although his head, which we measured,
is below the average size of the Anglo-Saxon race, he told us
that it-was with difficulty he could find, in a large hat-store at Mata-
moras, a single hat which would go on his head. Hats suited to
Mexicans are too small for Anglo-Saxons: a fact corroborated by
ample testimony. Throughout the winter season, in Mobile, at least
one hundred Indians of the Choctaw tribe wander about the streets,
endeavoring to dispose of their little packs of wood; and a glance
at their heads will show that they correspond, in every particular, with
the anatomical description just given. They present heads precisely
analogous to those ancient crania taken from the mounds over the
whole territory of the United States; while they most strikingly
contrast esvith the Anglo-Saxons, French, Spaniards and Negroes,
among whom they are moving.
It is impossible to say how long human bones may be preserved in
a dry soil. There are some curious statements of Squier, and many
more of Wilson,371 respecting the barrows of the ancient Britons, where
skeletons have been preserved at least 2000 years: —
“ Considering that the earth around these skeletons is wonderfully compact and dry, and
that the conditions for their preservation are exceedingly favorable, while they are in fact
so much decayed, we may form some approximate estimate of their remote antiquity. In
the barrows of the ancient Britons, entire, well-preserved skeletons are found, although
possessing an undoubted antiquity of at least eighteen hundred years. Local causes may
produce singular results in particular instances, but we speak now of these remains in the
aggregate.” 372
From the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon we have bones of at least
2500 years old;373 from the pyramids374 and the catacombs of Egypt,
37