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lower streams with their milder climate have failed to attract settlement when they could be reached from the north simply by committing themselves in primitive canoes to the current of the great streams?

The expulsion of the Mound Builders from the north, where they developed so much talent for military defence, should be indicated by a repetition of those defences if they made a permanent stand below; but of this there is no trace. They were evidently long threatened from the northeast, while the inhabitants of the central and lower Valley dwelt in security; but the danger suddenly burst out in uncontrollable fury. The miners left their work incomplete on Lake Superior; the fortresses were stormed and only a small part of the population about them probably escaped the general massacre. The remnant rushed down the Valley pursued by the triumphant foe, and the Mound Builders Empire suddenly collapsed. This history has often been repeated among the primitive nations. Just so the Empire of Montezuma fell, and the wise rule of the powerful Incas of Peru ended in sudden ruin.

A general unity and coincident occupation of the whole Valley is most probable, and this implies a very large population. This large population of unwarlike people would be no argument against sudden annihilation. Alexander conquered the countless hosts of the Persian Empire with thirty thousand men, and the Aztecs and Peruvians were overthrown by a few hundred European warriors. The savages by whom this Valley Empire must have been conquered probably pursued the same policy as the Iroquois of later times. Three distant branches of their own race, which were settled in Upper Canada between the Lakes, and on the southern shore of Erie, were suddenly attacked about the middle of the seventeenth century and annihilated. The dawning missions among the Hurons, from which the Jesuits hoped so much, were suddenly destroyed. Their presence and counsels and French protection could save but a miserable remnant of a once powerful tribe.

If the numerous and elaborate works of the Valley prove a large population they also furnish the strongest evidence that the crowded population could depend on abundant supplies of food. No hunter race could exist in such numbers or be brought under a control so complete as to give origin to the Mounds. The Indian tribes followed the game in its migrations, had only temporary residences, and could not spare time if they had possessed the inclination for such labors. The Mound Builders had a keen eye to agricultural productiveness, and all the sites of their works were located in the most fertile alluvial basins. The occurrence of mounds of observation and signal stations on prominent points, which were concealed and useless by the heavy forests on and around them, hints that the forest had been removed before the time of their erection. The heavy timber had been cut down and in its place, without doubt, were vast fields of corn and, perhaps, other grains.

The occurrence of charred corn on the altars of sacrifice seems to turn this supposition into certainty. The occurrence of ancient fields, sometimes called "garden-beds," in which regular rows, as of maize carefully cultivated, with a manifest division into distinct lots by a change in the direction of the rows, seems to favor this idea. The Indians were never known to cultivate with such carefulness and regularity. Only a cheap food could render possible the extra labors and public monuments of this race. Maize, or Indian corn, is a native of tropical regions, where it grows wild. It was probably introduced to North America by this race in their migration from the South, together with tobacco, which is a native of the Andes. The great number of pipes found in the mounds indicates that tobacco was a favorite luxury with the Mound Builders and widely cultivated. They are believed also to have cultivated beans and various vines.

There are indications in places that they sometimes surrounded their cultivated fields with embankments of earth, and that on some of the streams they built levees to prevent

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overflow. Traces of roads and causeways have also been noticed on the affluents of the Lower Mississippi. Maize is so productive in the regions occupied by the Mound Builders that comparatively few persons could easily cultivate enough to furnish the principal food to thousands. It was the basis of their civilization, there is no doubt. The ancient dwellers in the fertile valleys exulted in plenty drawn from a careful and systematic cultivation that furnished all the food they could require.

On this unfailing abundance, drawn from the best watered and most fertile parts of the Valley, rose a variety of classes and a division of labor, without which advance in civilization would be impossible. The evidence is clear that the elements of engineering and of skill in laying out military works was considerably advanced. Accurate squares, angles, circles, and other figures on a scale often embracing many acres are frequent, and works distant from each other inclose precisely the same space. The corners of the platform mounds usually correspond with the points of the compass. A careful, measured regularity is a marked feature of a large part of the works, especially where they are carried out on a large scale. The genius of foresight and calculation, of preparation against a variety of disasters, indicates a class educated to the military life among a people to whom fighting was not agreeable. The extremely large scale of many of the fortresses indicates that there must have been many soldiers to defend them, and perhaps that they were places of temporary resort during an inroad of the enemy. Occasionally a town site appears to have been protected with walls; but usually the fortresses occupied the heights which offered the best natural facilities for defence. If wooden stockades crowned the earthworks, as is probable, they must have been very formidable to a savage foe. They probably sheltered the people for many generations against occasional attacks.

The arts of the Mound Builders did not extend to working

stone in masses. For this the surface of the Valley did not furnish very abundant material, but their minor sculptures often indicate an observant eye, and, considering the materials and the tools, an extremely skillful hand. The Peruvians had learned the art of hardening copper with tin so that stone could be worked with metal tools. There is no indication of any such useful tools among this race; and yet the hardest stone was wrought into a great variety of forms. These works of art, in a great multitude of cases, are surprisingly true to nature. Most of the animals of the Valley and some never found in it were executed with rare fidelity and correctness of expression, in characteristic attitudes, and, when the material permitted, a high polish was added. Some of their works rival the best Peruvian specimens.

So striking are many of these works of sculptured art that some have refused to believe a people so primitive as they supposed the Mound Builders were, could have produced them. Seven different specimens of the manatee or lamantin, a curious marine animal, with two fore paws closely resembling a human hand, have been found. It frequents the shores and rivers of the northern coast of South America. Many other sculptures represent animals of the southern hemisphere, and their occurrence in the mounds of the upper Valley is considered extremely significant. Some have believed them imported, but equally skillful representations of birds and most of the animals of the Valley as clearly show that there were artists here quite capable of producing them after having once closely observed the originals.

Some unfinished sculptures suggest how the work was carried on, although the kind of tool used for cutting is a mystery. The outline was made as a whole, and the details for each part worked out together and in harmony-showing that a full picture was in the mind of the artist from the first--and the strokes of the cutting tool were bold and confident, displaying a well-skilled hand. Occasionally a humorous figure,