Undoubtedly they were skilled in agriculture, from the remains of ancient garden-beds, which were cultivated in a methodical manner.  The modern Indians give no such evidence of labor.  For wherever they are found they love to roam in undisputed possession of the forest, and lead an indolent life.  Of course I do not assign this as a valid reason for their not being identified with the Mound-builders.  An ancient race may have a degenerate offspring.

Nor shall I attempt to find in the various inscriptions any clue to their Hebrew origin, or to identify that ancient people with the lost tribes, as some have dared to do.  Foster inclines to regard them as emigrating from the tropics, rather than coming from the north.

This would involve us in investigating the antiquity of the Mexican and Peruvian ruins, where vast works of high architecture and more advanced civilization were found than among the Mound-builders.  There is little difficulty in concluding that the Aztecs, who occupied Mexico during the Spanish invasion under Cortez, were the conquerors of several races that preceded them.  Among these conquered races, no doubt, were the Toltecs, who were afterwards found in such great numbers, and in an amazing state of advanced civilization.  The crania of the Mound-builders and the Toltecs correspond.  Now, whether they migrated to the north from the tropics, or journeyed south from the north, I cannot say.  I should incline to the latter theory.  Industry is sure to advance.  The rude mounds of the United States are far surpassed by those immense pyramids in Mexico and Peru, surpassing the Egyptian in size.  And those fine architectural palaces and temples, whose history we cannot fully know, far eclipse anything in the northern part of America.

Whoever they were and wherever they came from, they were doubtless driven southward by the invading tribes of the north.  They nobly fought their way, contesting every foot, until superior numbers took them by force.  Thus these quiet and inoffensive creatures were finally expelled from their home which doubtless their fathers had occupied through centuries.  If any escaped they, no doubt, found an asylum southward, where there were other tribes equally civilized, and, forming an union with them or conquered by them, they began a higher and better civilization as seen in Mexico and Peru.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes: 

Page 8:  Octogon has been changed to octagon.

Page 15:  Smithsonion has been changed to Smithsonian.