When we reflect on the almost countless multitude, and the magnificent proportions of the monuments we have just described, we are compelled to recognise the fact that the American valleys must at some early date have been much more densely populated than at the time when Europeans first made their way thither. These peoples must have formed considerable communities, and have attained to a somewhat high state of civilisation—at all events a state very superior to that which is at present the attribute of the Indian tribes.
Tribes which were compelled to seek in hunting their means of every-day existence, could never have succeeded in raising constructions of this kind. They must therefore necessarily have found other resources in agricultural pursuits.
This inference is moreover confirmed by facts. In several localities in the United States the ground is covered with small elevations known under the name of Indian corn-hills; they take their rise from the fact that the maize, having been planted every year in the same spot, has ultimately, after a long course of time, formed rising grounds. The traces of ancient corn-patches have also been discovered symmetrically arranged in regular beds and parallel rows.
Can any date be assigned to this period of semi-civilisation which, instead of improving more and more like civilisation in Europe, became suddenly eclipsed, owing to causes which are unknown to us? This question must be answered in the negative, if we are called upon to fix any settled and definite date. Nevertheless, the conclusion to which American archæologists have arrived is, that the history of the New World must be divided into four definite periods.
The first period includes the rise of agriculture and industrial skill; the second, the construction of mounds and inclosures; the third, the formation of the "garden beds." In the last period, the American nation again relapsed into savage life and to the free occupation of the spots which had been devoted to agriculture.
In his work on 'Pre-historic Times' Sir John Lubbock, who has furnished us with most of these details, estimates that this course of events would not necessarily have required a duration of time of more than 3000 years, although he confesses that this figure might be much more considerable. But Dr. Douler, another savant, regards this subject in a very different way. Near New Orleans he discovered a human skeleton and the remains of a fire, to which, basing his calculations on more or less admissible data, he attributes an antiquity of 500 centuries! Young America would thus be very ancient indeed!
By this instance we may see how much uncertainty surrounds the history of primitive man in America; and it may be readily understood why we have thought it necessary to adhere closely to scientific ideas and to limit ourselves to those facts which are peculiar to Europe. To apply to the whole world the results which have been verified in Europe is a much surer course of procedure than describing local and imperfectly studied phenomena, which, in their interpretation, lead to differences in the estimate of time, such as that between 3000 and 50,000 years!
[CONCLUSION.]
Before bringing our work to a close we may be permitted to retrace the path we have trod, and to embrace in one rapid glance the immense space we have traversed.