this earth being carried by hand, probably in baskets, often for a considerable distance, and deposited upon the mounds.

Historical. The history of the Mound-Builders can only be conjectural. Possibly, had the early settlers of America been disposed to archæological inquiry, traces of this vanished people might have been found north as well as south. A. J. Conant, in his "Footprints of Vanished Races," says that the Indian tribes, when first known, had traditions of a superior race whom they had conquered and enslaved. Here and there a solitary individual was found who claimed to be a prophet and the descendant of a long priestly line, a representative of this superior race. To these statements no attention was paid, and only a few of the many traditions which might have been collected are now extant. It is not improbable that the semi-civilization of the Mound-Builders originated in the Mississippi Valley, possibly in the highly-fertile region of the lower Mississippi, and that it gradually extended northward, by a natural process of expansion, to the point of confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio. From this point the colonists seem to have followed several channels. keeping to the rivers, and extending through the valleys of the Ohio, the Missouri, and other streams, until they finally occupied the whole region already indicated. There is reason to believe that the mouth of the Ohio was the central point of their domain, from its lack of defensive works, its abundance of mounds, and the superior character of its objects of art and industry. Eastward and westward they extended far towards the bordering mountain-chains, and northward to Isle Royale and the shores of Lake Superior, where the traces of mining operations are their most northerly indications. It is conjectured that they came here only in the summer, on mining expeditions, and

that they had no regular settlements in this region. The Mississippi and the Ohio seem to have been their main arteries of expansion, and the Missouri somewhat less so, while indications of their occupancy diminish as we pass from this centre towards the north, east, and west.

It is possible that the reverse movement was in somewhat the same lines. If, in their advance, they pushed back the original inhabitants of the country, these seem to have held their own in the mountains, and to have finally retaliated. The many works of defence which exist indicate a fierce and long-continued era of warfare, in which it is probable that the soil of the United States was deeply drenched with human blood, perhaps at the same period that similar fierce conflicts between barbarism and civilization were taking place in Europe and Asia. As the Romans long drove back the German tribes and possessed their country, and yet were in turn overcome by these vigorous tribes, so may the Mound-Builders have outspread and finally been overthrown. Probably they were conquered piecemeal, as there is no probability that they composed a single empire, but rather a congeries of independent tribes, with similar arts and organization. However that be, they vanished from the land which they had long inhabited, and it was left in full possession of the hunting tribes, who were found there as sole inhabitants at the advent of the whites, with only the deserted mounds and their contents in attestation of an earlier and more interesting people. The Mound-Builders, driven from the North, and down the Mississippi Valley to their original seat in the Gulf States, may have there retained their manners and customs and partial civilization, with more or less completeness, till the coming of the whites, and have constituted the tribes found there by La Salle and his followers. Once more they were invaded by a power

ful foe, before whose assault the last vestige of their ancient organization was to disappear, and their most illustrative tribe, the Natchez, to vanish finally from the earth. As to the period in which the kingdom of the MoundBuilders flourished in the North, many conjectures have been made. There are some indications which point to a considerable antiquity. Forest trees probably six hundred years old are found on some of the mounds. Traces of decaying trees of yet older date exist. Yet after the abandonment of the mounds a long period must have elapsed ere forest trees could have taken root in their clayey soil, and a much longer period ere they could have been invaded by trees having all the variety of the neighboring forests, as was the case when they were discovered. There are also vegetable accumulations which indicate a considerable lapse of time. In one ditch these accumulations were three feet eight inches deep. The greatlydecayed condition of the skeletons is another evidence of antiquity. Still another is the encroachment of streams upon the abandoned works. The works of the MoundBuilders are not erected upon the present river terrace, but upon a higher one, which may indicate that the rivers have deepened their channels since the date of erection of the mounds, or perhaps that the purpose of this was to avoid inundation. If the era of abandonment of these works was thus remote, that of their erection may have been much more remote, and the slow growth of the civilization of the Mound-Builders from original savagery may have occupied a vast period, whose duration it would be idle to conjecture. It will suffice to say that in these strange remains we have a revelation of a remarkable and long-continued series of human events upon this portion of the American continent which, but for them, would be lost in total oblivion.

It is not improbable that the Gulf territory of the United States may have been the centre of outflow of the civilization of another region than that of the MoundBuilders. The migrations of the latter may have taken place south as well as north, and given rise to the civilization of Mexico. Or more probably their southward movement before the overwhelming incursions of their Northern foes may have set in train a new movement southward, the Southern tribes yielding as those of the North were pushed back upon them, and migrating through the Mexican region to the seats of the Nahua and Maya empires. This conjecture is based not alone on the traditions of a Northern origin which prevailed in these empires, but on the close conformity of their organization and their architecture to those we have been considering.

Sun-worship was the early faith of the Aztecs. Their ruler was at once chief and high-priest. His power was despotic. The perpetual fire of the temples was guarded as sedulously as in the North, and its extinguishment deemed a dire calamity. The land was held in common, and there were public granaries in which a part of all products had to be deposited. A governing council shared Human sacrifice had grown Other points of community might be named, but these are the most striking.

the authority of the ruler.

to frightful dimensions.

In architecture a similar community existed. The temples of Mexico were built upon terraced and truncated mounds quite similar in general design to those of the North. In Yucatan these terraced mounds are repeated, and here they bear enormous and profusely-sculptured stone edifices. Here, then, we seem to reach the final outcome of that movement towards civilization which began in the North, and reached its culmination in the American tropics, in all its changes preserving the finger-marks of

its origin. This is conjectural only, yet it is a conjecture. based upon striking indications, and it is certainly by no means improbable that the civilization of North America originated in the valley of the lower Mississippi and its adjacent regions, extended northward and left its relics in the works of the Mound-Builders, and afterwards moved south before an irresistible force, finding its final seat in Mexico and Central America, where it may have displaced or mingled with a more archaic native civilization.

UNWRITTEN MUSIC.

N. P. WILLIS.

MEPHISTOPHELES could hardly have found a more striking amusement for Faust than the passage of three hundred miles in the canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson. As I walked up and down the deck of the packet-boat, I thought to myself that if it were not for thoughts of things that come more home to one's "business and bosom" (particularly "bosom") I could be content to retake my berth at Schenectady and return to Buffalo for amusement. The Erie canal-boat is a long and very pretty drawing-room afloat. It has a library, sofas, a tolerable cook, curtains or Venetian blinds, a civil captain, and no smell of steam or perceptible motion. It is drawn generally by three horses at a fair trot, and gets you through about a hundred miles a day, as softly as if you were witched over the ground by Puck and Mustard-seed. The company (say fifty people) is such as pleases Heaven; though I must say (with my eye all along the shore, collecting the various dear friends I have made and left on