Let any traveler start from Wisconsin and traverse the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, and cross the country from the Alleghenies to the Western Plateau, and throughout his course he will find thousands of mounds of earth with a conical or pyramidal apex, and containing within their interior relics of human remains and inventions. When a traveler asks the origin and reasons of these mounds, he is almost invariably met with the enigmatical answer, “Indian mounds.” They were not made by

We know that the Mound-builders had a knowledge of Mexico before their southwestern migration, because obsidian was found in their mounds, and this mineral is found only in Mexico. No links are so conclusive in connecting the Mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley with those of Mexico, as the truncated, pyramidal mounds. True to the historical traditions that all great centers of civilization have been along the great river basins, we would naturally turn to the water-courses of Mexico to resu

While the Mayas of Yucatan and Central America spoke a different language from the Astecs, certain analogies in building and invention warrant us in considering them at this point. The oldest civilization in America was in Yucatan, Honduras and Guatemala, and, according to Bancroft, the oldest city in the western world is Copan, which was in ruins, deserted, and overgrown by a dense tropical forest, at the time of the Spanish Conquest, three hundred and sixty years ago. The Mayas of Yucatan, acc

Whence sprang the Mound-builders? It is evident, after reading the foregoing, that a people who could reach such a degree of civilization, must have received an impetus from without, which makes us conclude that the Mound-builders migrated to America. “The Story of Atlantis,” as recorded by Plato in his Timæus , has been regarded as a myth, but seems destined to become genuine history. The translation of the Greek philosopher is as follows:—“Among the great deeds of Athens, of which recollection

We now proceed to discuss the relation of the Mound-builders to the inhabitants of Atlantis , or their immediate neighbors, the Egyptians. Dr. Waitz, in his “Anthropology of Primitive Peoples,” observes: “The first elements of civilization, as far as history reaches, always appear as communicated from one people to another; and of no people can it be proved how, where and when they have become civilized by their own inherent power.” Now, Winchell in his genealogical charts, represents the entire

Time is the only alembic to test the true character of great men or deeds. Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe and Hugo are the few select representatives whom the world acknowledges as its spokesmen. Shakespeare was in his grave a hundred years before he spoke authoritatively to the world, and with Dante it was no better. Ages had passed away before the seven cities of Greece warred for the honor of Homer’s birthplace, but for twenty-six centuries has the “Siege of Troy” stood out in profile as t

The former existence of Atlantis is an hypothesis, it is true, but so is the existence of Lemuria, and nearly every scientist of Europe believes that a continent once existed in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and India, and the proof is not wanting. On the Island of Madagascar are found thirty-three species of monkeys, called Lemurs, which are not found in Africa, nor in any other part of the globe, except Ceylon, India, and the Malay Archipelago. Because the Lemurs are found only in this r