Museums F 351 .W18 1880 PREFACE. The object of this book is to supply the means of acquiring a clear idea of the Origin, Extent, Resources, and Development of the Mississippi Valley. No work before the public embraces this information. Can a subject apparently so familiar in its general features as the development of the Valley of the Mississippi be clothed with fresh interest? A brilliant and durable prosperity must have an extraordinary cause; and a region that has reacted with such happy effect on the character and destinies of a great nation must be worthy of close study. That study will show that the Valley is only beginning to make itself felt in the country and the world, that its natural advantages are wholly unequaled by any section of the globe, and that its People and Institutions are equally superior. Scientific studies on its original formation have been principally confined to learned books. Presented in a condensed and popular form, they will be found of fascinating interest; while a complete view of its surface features, its vast area, its variety of climate and soil, its agricultural and mineral resources, its rivers, lakes, and plains, and wide expanding rim, with the peculiar course and significance of its human history, show it to be the grandest and most desirable region in the world. It is to be a mighty element in a wonderful Future. The works of the Mound Builders, before authentic history began, furnish evidence that it was even then the abode of a numerous and prosperous people, and nourished one of the Primitive Civilizations of the world. The publisher feels justified in saying that in all the range of English literature no publication can be found embodying so many valuable and interesting facts, collected from reliable scientific investigators and from the remains of antiquity, presented in a manner so pleasing, and, at the same time, free from dry and tedious details. It can not fail to please all friends of literature and science. INTRODUCTION. Within the last half century the world has been passing through changes of a new and striking kind. Many tendencies that had been long acquiring strength in secret, have suddenly come to the surface and taken control of life and thought; directness and force, leading to results of worldwide importance such as no previous period could show, have become characteristic of most displays of energy in practical fields, and made the general situation for mankind at large extremely different. It reminds us of the flowering time of the plant when new parts are suddenly unfolded, new purposes and powers revealed, and all its vital energies concentrated on the final work of maturing the fruit. Science is one of the chief factors in this suddenly quickened progress. It has learned to make its studies at once. minute, comprehensive, and accurate. By carefully examining every particular, putting all the facts together to learn the significance of the whole, and then returning to a consideration of the relation of the parts to the general result, it seems to lay bare the secrets of nature. There are few things which it appears capable of concealing from an inquiry so searching, and the practical and the mental worlds seem to share about equally in the grand discoveries. The earth and the history of man have acquired a new meaning, and are invested with greater interest. Tracing effects back to causes, science finds conclusive proof of what before could only be dimly suspected, that all things are bound together in a true unity; that the solid earth has passed through a succession of changes as orderly as the stages of growth in a plant or an animal, each change contributing to the general advance toward a foreseen end. It is continually finding new evidence that the earth was fitted up with reference to human history; and history is found to show more clearly the more carefully it is studied, that it has been guided with reference to the structure and varying resources of different regions of the earth. The physical structure of Europe has exerted immense influence on civilization, ancient and modern; the wonderful effect of the peculiar resources and position of England on its people and the world is well known. The American continent as a whole, the transfer of European institutions to it and their subsequent re-action on development in Europe, also illustrate this law. The Mississippi Valley is in itself a case strongly in point, and in some peculiar ways. Its grand outlines were drawn in the earliest geological times; it was constructed with great simplicity throughout its general surface, but very elaborately on its borders, where all the resources of volcanic force, of heat and chemical activity were taxed to enrich it with various treasures; glaciers of almost continental magnitude were employed to provide it with a rich, deep soil; it has an unrivaled location and its system of water-ways gives it a magnificent unity. Nature was lavish of her best, and did not change her mood from first to last. It is interesting and significant to note how carefully the course of human history was guided to preserve this fortunate Valley from permanent occupation by any people whose genius and stage of development rendered them unfit to be its heirs. The primitive civilization of the Mound Builders was broken up before it became too strong, being, probably, more fully developed in Central America and Mexico; the |