File:The magazine of American history with notes and queries (1877) (14783294282).jpg

Identifier: magazineofamericv19stev (find matches)
Title: The magazine of American history with notes and queries
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Stevens, John Austin, 1827-1910. ed. cn DeCosta, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1831-1904. ed. cn Johnston, Henry Phelps, 1842-1923, ed. cn Lamb, Martha J. (Martha Joanna), 1829-1893. ed. cn Pond, Nathan Gillett, 1832-1894 ed Abbatt, William, 1851-1935, comp
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Publisher: New York : A.S. Barnes
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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and cross fire from the enemy who layin security behind it. Surely no prehistoric defensive work could receivea higher compliment from higher military authority! These instances have been selected to show the knowledge of militarydefensive works possessed by the modern Indians. This knowledge wasnot inferior to that of the so-called mound builders. That the works of the * Traced by the writer from the original report in the possession of the Tennessee HistoricalSociety at Nashville. 386 ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE latter surpassed in magnitude all modern native earthworks does not neces-sarily indicate a higher order of intelligence, nor is there any deep mysteryin their larger proportions. There is, indeed, a striking similarity in all these native works ofdefense, whether ancient or modern. I have visited a number of the greatmounds of the Ohio valley. They are remarkable structures—monumentsof labor and patience. Imagine a thousand Indians—women and children—men, also—with
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STONE FORT.Co7rtml«,54 A.3R.I3P. baskets of willow and skins, bearing on heads and shoulders the alluvialsoil from the river side, to raise a mighty memorial to some great warrior,or to build a strong defensive work as a protection against a dreadedenemy, or a towering home for an honored chief, and it will not be diffi-cult to account for most of these large earthworks. I have seen the busy throng of a hundred or more Italian women andboys with baskets removing the earth that covered ancient Pompeii. Theashes of Vesuvius, nearly nineteen centuries old, buried the city twentyfeet deep ; yet about one-half of the entire city has been uncovered andlaid bare to the eyes of the travelers. Less than a tithe of this vast labor ANCIENT SOCIETY IN TENNESSEE 387 of removal would have erected the largest purely artificial mound in theMississippi Valley. The highest of the great mounds of America, at Cahokia, Illinois, isbut one-fifth of the height of the solid stone pyramid of Gizeh on the ban

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