American Antiquities: Corroborative of the Book of Mormon (17 December 1859)

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES,
CORROBORATIVE OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

(Continued from page 787.)

The ordinary dimensions of the mounds are, however, considerably inferior to those here mentioned, and generally range from six to thirty feet in perpendicular height, by forty to a hundred in diameter at the base. In accordance with their different characters, these earth and stone-works have by scientific inquirers been classed under several heads—namely enclosures for defence, sacred and miscellaneous enclosures, mounds of sacrifice, temple mounds, sepulchral mounds, &c., which at once indicate the various purposes for which they are supposed to have served, partly from their resemblance to those of Mexico, the purposes of which are known, and partly from their unmistakable characteristics. The works, the features of which pro re beyond a doubt that they must have been constructed for defence, usually occupy strong natural positions, which give evidence of having been selected with profound skill and great care. They are all contiguous to water, generally on the steep banks of a stream, by which one side of the enclosed area is defended, and the vicinity of higher lauds from which they might be commanded has everywhere been avoided, while the approaches in general are made as difficult as possible, access to the fortified position is, on one or two points, allowed to be comparatively easy; and for the protection of these points, the skill of the builders has been taxed to the utmost. A watch-tower or alarm-post, in the guise of a mound, is generally found close to them, and they are defended by! Two or sometimes more overlapping or concentric wails. In addition to the skill evinced in the choice of position, we must farther remark the industry that has reared the works, and the strong conviction of their necessity which must have been entertained, as the stones which, together with earth form the component parts of the walls,

Are often foreign to the locality, and must have been brought from a considerable distance. In a large proportion of the works, the square and the circle, separate or in combination, very frequently occur; and it bai been ascertained by careful admeasurement that in almost every case where they do occur, and even in those cases where the embankments and circum-valuations are as much as a mile and upwards in extent, the circles are perfect circles, and the rectangular works perfect squares,—circumstances which prove that the builders must have proceeded on scientific principles. It has also been proved That wherever the locality has been deficient in a natural supply of water, or the position of the works has rendered access to this difficult, the deficiency has been rectified by the establishment of artificial reservoirs within the fortifications those enclosures which, from their peculiarities and position, are deemed not to have been Intended for defence and are consequently supposed to have constituted that sacred line which, among all primitive people, has marked the boundary of the space consecrated to their religious worship, are frequently of very considerable extent. This circumstance has Induced the belief that they have not only enclosed that which has strictly been considered the temple but that they have embraced likewise some stored grove, as was the case among the ancient Britons and other nations of the Old World; or, what Is more probable, the dwellings of the priesthood, as was the case in Mexico and Peru. The correctness of applying a sacred character to these enclosures is proved by the numerous earthen altars which have been found in the enclosed areas, as also by the frequent recurrence of pyramidal structures within their precincts, which fully correspond to those of Mexico and Central America, except that they are not constructed with stone, and that, instead of being ascended by broad flights of steps, their summits are reached by graded avenues or spiral pathways. Upon the summits there are, indeed, no vestiges of buildings or mural remains; but as the builders had probably either declined from, or not attained to the same degree of civilization as the constructors of the southern cities, their edifices may have been of wood, and consequently more perishable. In the Southern United States, from Florida to Texas, the remains, as has been stated, approach nearest to those of Mexico and Central America; the mounds are pyramidal in form, and their relative positions seem to imply a regular system; broad terraces of various heights, elevated causeways, and long avenues are of frequent occurrence; but enclosures, and particularly those of a military character, are rare. In these States, however, much remains to be learned relative to the aboriginal remains, which are only now being scientifically and systematically examined. With reference to all these works, the same remark will hold good—that, though tribes of half-savage Indians in different parts of the country have erected fortifications in many respects evincing a certain degree of affinity to the ancient works alluded to, they are invariably greatly inferior to these; and though the Indians are sometimes found occupying the sites of the various non-military structures, and apparently putting them to uses in a great measure similar to those for which they are supposed to have been originally intended, yet, independently of all other indications, the tribes in these cases always confess that they are availing themselves of the works of predecessors of a much anterior date—predecessors to whom, in their traditions, they always assign great superiority over themselves. The strongest and most indisputable evidence in favour of the antiquity of these works of man is, however, afforded by the monuments which nature has raised on their ruins. In numerous cases where the forest trees which now cover the great majority of these mounds and embankments have been examined, annual rings, denoting a growth of from 600 to 800 years, have been counted on their trunks. But even these 800 years do not bring us near to the date of the erection of the works; for it has been observed by those who have given attention to these matters, that a homogeneity of character is peculiar to the first growth of trees on lands once cleared and then abandoned to nature, whereas the sites of the ancient works which we have been describing present the same appearance as the circumjacent forests, being covered with the same beautiful variety of trees. In a discourse on the aborigines of the Ohio, the late President Harrison, of the United States, after having stated that, upon the first clearing of the forest, certain trees of strong and rapid growth spring up in such profusion as entirely to smother the others of more weakly nature which attempt to grow in their shade, expresses himself as follows:—‘This state of things will not, however, always continue. The preference of the soil for its first growth ceases with its maturity: it admits of no succession on the principle of legitimacy. The long undisputed masters of the forest may be thinned by the lightning, the tempests, or by diseases peculiar to themselves; and whenever this is the case, one of the oft-rejected of another family will find between its decaying roots shelter and appropriate food, and, springing into vigorous growth, will soon push its green foliage to the skies, through the decayed and withering limbs of its blasted and dying adversary; the soil itself yielding it a more liberal support than any scion from the former occupants. It will easily be conceived what a length of time it will require for a denuded tract of land, by a process so slow, again to clothe itself with the amazing variety of foliage which is the characteristic of the foremost these regions. Of what immense age, then, must be those works, so often recurred to, covered, as has been supposed by those who have the best opportunity of examining them, with the second growth after the ancient forest state, had been regained!' In the north and north-western part of the territory over which these ancient remains spread, in Wisconsin, and also in a certain measure in Michigan, Iowa, and Missouri, the earthworks assume a character so different from any we have as yet surveyed, as almost to induce the belief that they must be the productions of a distinct race. Yet the transition is not abrupt; for instances of the peculiar mounds which we are about to describe occur, though isolated, in Ohio also.