[10] Antiquity of Man in U. S., p. 12; also, Ancient Earth Forts of the Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio, by Col. Charles Whittlesey, Cleveland, O., 1871, pp. 40 and plates.
[11] Pre-Historic Races of the U. S., p. 145.
[12] Smithsonian Report for 1873, p. 364 et seq., from which we draw the above. The Proceedings of the American Ass. for the Adv. of Science for 1875.
[13] See Mr. Gillman’s in Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of Archæology and Ethnology, p. 12 et seq., Cambridge, 1873, and Am. Jour. of Arts and Sciences, 3d ser., vol. vii, pp. 1–9, Jan., 1874.
[14] Foster’s Pre-Historic Races, p. 151. “There is a large mound, three hundred feet high and three hundred yards in diameter at the base, at the southern end of the prairie, about twenty-five miles from Olympia; and scattered over the prairie for a distance of fifteen miles are many smaller mounds, not more than four feet high and twenty or thirty in diameter. * * * A few days ago one of the engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad opened one of them and found the remains of pottery; and a more thorough examination of others revealed other curious relics, evidently the work of human hands; in fact, in every mound that has yet been opened there is some relic of a long-forgotten race discovered.” In quoting the above, Dr. Foster remarks that the great mound was no doubt a natural eminence artificially rounded off.
[15] Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition during the Years 1838–42. Phila., 1844. Tom. IV, p. 334. “We soon reached the Butte prairies (on Columbia River) which were extensive, and covered with tumuli or small mounds, at regular distances asunder. As far as I could learn there is no tradition among the natives relative to them. They are conical mounds thirty feet in diameter, about six to seven feet high above the level, and many thousands in number. Being anxious to ascertain if they contained any relics, I subsequently visited these prairies, and opened three of the mounds, but found nothing in them but a pavement of round stones.”
[16] Baldwin (Ancient America, pp. 31–2) remarks: “Lewis and Clark reported seeing them on the Missouri River a thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi River; but this report has not been satisfactorily verified.”
[17] See Mr. A. Barrandt in Smithsonian Report, 1870, for an account of discoveries on Clark’s Creek in Dakota; on the Bighorn River; on the Yellowstone; on the Morean and the banks of the Great Cheyenne. See Foster’s Pre-Historic Races, pp. 153–4. The proof is conclusive that the head-waters of the Missouri was one of their ancient seats. The same gentleman (Mr. Barrandt) describes a remarkable mound in Lincoln County, Dakota, situated eighty-five miles north-west of Sioux City, on the west fork of the Little Sioux of Dakota or Turkey Creek. The mound is known as the “Hay Stack.” Its dimensions are 327 feet in length at the base on the north-west side, and 290 on the south-east side, and 120 feet wide. It slopes at an angle of about 50°, is from thirty-four to forty feet in height, the north-east end being the higher. To the summit, which is from twenty-eight to thirty-three feet wide, there is a well-beaten path. The remarkable feature of the mound is the fact that part of the north-east side is walled up with soft sandstone and limestone, brought a distance of at least three miles from an ancient quarry. The remainder of the surface is pronounced to be of calcined clay. The mound contained a large interior circular chamber, in which the bones of animals, thirty-six pieces of pottery, and a mass of charcoal and ashes were found.—Smithsonian Report for 1872, pp. 413 et seq.
[18] Since this is a contested point, both as to the presence of the works of the Mound-builders in the North-west and as to their great antiquity, I subjoin a portion of a report on these mounds made by Gen. H. W. Thomas, U. S. A., to Dr. Thomas of the Surveying Expedition, in the Sixth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey under Dr. Hayden in 1872, pp. 656–7:
“‘Lewis and Clarke reported seeing Indian mounds 1000 miles above the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, but this report is not verified.’ So says Mr. John D. Baldwin, A. M., in his work entitled ‘Ancient America.’
“I now and here propose to contribute my mite toward the verification of the statement of Lewis and Clarke.
“The few men whom duty or wild inclination have from time to time brought into this, for the most part, uninhabited region of treeless prairie, have all known of the existence of thousands of artificial mounds. What was in them they knew not, and but two or three, to my knowledge, have ever been opened. On August 16, 1872, I opened one on the high table-lands that spread out on both sides of a little stream called the James. The point is about 47° north latitude, and 98° 38´ longitude west from Greenwich. It is within three miles of the line of the North Pacific Railroad. The mound is circular in form, 30⁸⁄₁₀ feet in its shorter, and 35³⁄₁₀ feet in its longer diameter, and five feet high. I opened four trenches, three feet wide, from the outer edge, meeting in the centre, forming a cross when finished. I then excavated the entire mound from the centre outward, until there was nothing more to find. For results I had several two-bushel bags full of bones, eight skulls, many pieces of skulls too small to be of value (there must have been at least twenty-five bodies buried there), a rough-hewn stone ten inches high and five and a half inches in diameter, in shape resembling closely a conical shell, a cutting half an inch deep around the centre. (This was evidently tied with thongs to a stout handle, and used in pulverizing their maize.) A portion of a shell necklace, two flints, two heads of beaver, and some bones of animals unknown, and a large quantity of bivalves, much like the clam (Mya oblongata) of our Atlantic coast, but thicker, and the interior surface much more pearly.
“The mounds and their contents are apparently of great antiquity. They are, in every case, on the very highest point in their immediate neighborhood, and perfectly drained. The climate is excessively dry; so dry that the James River is entirely dry at a point about 500 feet above the contemplated railroad-bridge across the river. Notwithstanding this, many of the bones crumbled into white dust on being brought to the air, like those found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, and it was absolutely impossible to get out a single one in anything like perfection. Around and over these bodies stones and sticks were placed, doubtless to preserve the remains from the coyote and the fox. The wood could be rubbed into fine yellow-brown dust between the thumb and forefinger. Any trace of excavation around the mound for dirt to heap it with had been entirely obliterated. The upright position of the skulls also indicated that the bodies were buried in a sitting posture. The leg-bones, however, lay lower and horizontal.
“The number of mounds indicates a denser population than ever has been known here, or than the natural resources of this region can now support by the chase. At the same time the number of dry lakes scattered all over would indicate that at some remote period the country may have been a better one than now, and supported a larger population.”