United States are the ancient cemeteries, the mounds, and the earthworks. It is very difficult to discover an Indian grave to the E. of the Alleghenies or to the W. of the 100th meridian. Within those limits they occur everywhere. The disposal of the dead was different in all the families of tribes. Inhumation, embalmment, inurning, surface disposal, aërial sepulture, aquatic burial, cremation, all had their advocates and practitioners. The most celebrated cemeteries are at Madisonville (Ohio), near Nashville (p. 319), and near Santa Barbara (p. 443).

Mounds and Earthworks. The mound and earthwork region includes W. New York, N. W. Pennsylvania, W. Virginia, N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, E. Missouri, S. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Dakota.

'Within this territory are the copper mines of Lake Superior, the saltmines of Illinois and Kentucky, the garden beds of Michigan, the pipestone quarry of Minnesota, the extensive potteries of Missouri, the stonegraves of Illinois and Tennessee, the workshops, the stone cairns, the stone walls, the ancient roadways, and the old walled towns of Georgia, the hut rings of Arkansas, the shelter caves of Tennessee and Ohio, the mica mines in South Carolina, the quarries in Flint Ridge (Ohio); the ancient hearths of Ohio, the bone beds and alabaster caves in Indiana, the shell-heaps of Florida, oil wells, and ancient mines and rock inscriptions'. [Peet, "The Mound-Builders: their works and their relics' (Chicago; p. 35).]

Both mounds and earthworks are, however, to be seen sparingly everywhere. The largest mounds in the United States are in Illinois, opposite St. Louis (p. 311), and no one should spend a day in that city without taking a trip across the great steel bridge and visiting the Cahokia Mound near E. St. Louis. In the neighbourhood are over fifty others of enormous size. In the cemetery at Marietta (p. 269), and at Grave Creek, on the Ohio river, 12 M. below Wheeling (p. 266), may be seen mounds of great size. The most famous tumulus in the United States is the Great Serpent Mound (p. 309), which, with the land adjacent, is the property of the Peabody Museum, in Cambridge (p. 84).++

To the E. of the Rocky Mountains, the most interesting remains are the earthworks. And of these there are two sorts, those designed for defence and those erected for ceremonial purposes. The former are found on bluffs and tongues of land with precipitous sides. These natural forts are strengthened by ditch banks and stone heaps and gateways covered within and without by mounds. The latter, on the contrary, are in exposed plains. Their ditch banks are in circles and polygonal figures and the parts are arranged as for religious and social occasions.

Besides those already mentioned the following defensive and ceremonial works may be mentioned (all in Ohio): the Great Mound, at Miamisburg; Fort Ancient, Warren Co.; the Newark Works; the Alligator Mound,

Putnam, An. Rep. Peabody Mus., Cambridge, Mass., xii and xiii, pp. ii & 470.

Putnam, Century Magazin. March and April, 1890.

near Granville; the Stone Fort, near Bourneville; the Fortified Hill in Butler Co.; the Liberty Township Works; and the Hopeton Works.

Consult Thomas's Catalogue for full list (Bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington); also Smithsonian Contributions, Vol. I.

Pueblos, Cliff-dwellings, and Cave-dwellings. In the drainage of the Colorado and the Rio Grande, within the boundaries of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and the N. tier of Mexican states are the pueblos and the cliff-dwellings. Twenty-one pueblos along the Rio Grande, between 34° 45′ - 36° 30′ N. lat., are still inhabited by two different stocks of Indians, the Tañoan and the Keresan. The Zuñi, residing near the W. border of New Mexico, on the 30th parallel, speak an independent language; and the Moki, on the reservation of the same name, N.E. Arizona (see p. 413), dwelling in seven towns or pueblos, belong to the Shoshonean linguistic stock. Besides these inhabited villages of stone and adobe, there are many hundreds in the territory just named that have long been tenantless, and most of them are in ruins. The largest of them and by far the most imposing ruin within the United States is the Casa Grande (see p. 463), or Casa de Montezuma, which, Bancroft says, t has been mentioned by every writer on American antiquity. The material is adobe made into large blocks. Three buildings are standing, one of them sufficiently preserved to show the original form. The largest collection of ruined pueblos in this region yet examined was surveyed by the Hemenway S. W. Expedition in 1888. The group lies on the Salado river, near the town of Phoenix (p. 463). ++ In the cañon regions bordering and opening into the Colorado river channel, especially upon the San Juan and the Dolores and their tributaries, are to be found cliff and cave dwellings innumerable. These are easily explained by the nature of the geologic formations. In the precipitous walls there are strata of soft stone sandwiched between layers of hard material. The action of the elements has carved out these soft layers, leaving a roof above and a floor below upon which the ancient cliff-dweller built his home. Indeed, he did not wait for the frost and the rain to do the work, but with his pickaxe of hard basalt dug out a cave for himself by making a tiny doorway in the face of the cliff and excavating behind this as many chambers as he pleased. Many of these cliff and cavate habitations are high up and difficult of access, but they overlook long valleys of arable land.+++ The relics found in this region are the envy of collectors, and the natives still manufacture excellent pottery, to imitate the old. The ancient is far superior in quality to the new, and hundreds of dollars are paid for a single piece, though fragments of the finest ware may be had for the picking up.

Trails, Reservoirs, and Aqueducts. For the purposes of war and

+ Bancroft, Native Races, N. Y., 1875, IV, 621-635.

tt Cushing, in the Compte Rendu of the Berlin meeting of the Society

of Americanists.

tit Bancroft, Native Races, N. Y., 1875, IV. 650-661.

trade the savages traversed the United States from end to end. They had no beasts of burden save the dog, consequently they made portages from stream to stream, carried their canoes and loads across on their backs, and then pursued their journey. The traces of these ancient paths of primitive commerce may yet be seen. In the same rude manner these savages had learned to store up and conduct water for home use and for irrigation. Especially in the South West are the works of this class to be studied.

Pictographs and Sculptures. The very ancient people and their modern representatives had attained to that form of writing called pictographic. The traveller will see in museums all sorts of figures scratched on bark, painted on skin or wood, etched on bone or ivory, engraved on pieces of stone, and he will often come upon the same designs sketched on cliffs and boulders. These constitute the written language of the aborigines. In true sculpture they were not at all adept and they had no alphabetic writing.. Once in a while mysterious bits of stone turn up with Cypriote or other characters thereon, but they never belonged to the civilization of this continent.

Relics of Ancient Art. As before mentioned the native tribes were in the neolithic stone age. Therefore, it is not exaggerating to say that the whole surface of the United States was strewn with relics. In every ancient grave, mound, or ruin they abound. The tourist will have no trouble to find in every town a museum containing these objects and in every hamlet some one whose house is packed with them. So desirable are they that thousands are fraudulently made and palmed off upon the unwary. These spurious objects find their way into foreign collections and very much embarrass the problems of archæology.

Crania and Skeletons. Much difficulty has been encountered by archæologists in distinguishing the crania of the truly prehistoric American from those of the Indians encountered by the early explorers. The problem is further embarrassed by artificial deformations and by changes produced by the pressure of the soil. Excellent collections exist in Cambridge, Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, and St. Louis.+

Ethnography. The native tribes that once covered the entire domain of the Union belonged to fifty independent linguistic stocks. Some of these were spread over vast areas, for example, the Algonkian, Athapascan, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, Shoshonean; and Siouan. But the majority of stocks occupied small areas, chiefly along the Pacific coast. ++

But a wonderful change has come over the surface of the United States in two centuries: Excepting a few small settlements of In

For the best résumé of the literature on the Archæologic Chapter, see Winsor, Narr. & Crit. Hist. of Am., I., pp. 329-412 (Boston, 1889). + See exhaustive account in vii. An. Rep. Bur. Ethnol., Wash., 1891, pp. 1-142, with map.

dians here and there, they are gone from the Atlantic States. Only the Cherokees in North Carolina, the Seminoles in Florida, the Iroquois in New York, and the Chippewa tribes about Lake Superior remain to the E. of the Mississippi river. The aboriginal title gave way to the title of discovery, and the feeble Indian title of occupancy has been swept away by the tide of European imigration. There are at present, as regards title and legal status, several kinds of Indians in the Union.

1. Citizen Indians. The State of Massachusetts and the United States in certain cases have conferred upon Indians the full rights of citizenship. 2. In a few states, notably New York, reservations are granted to Indians and they are protected in their tribal rights therein.

3. Roving Indians are still at large in greater or smaller bands, especially in the Rocky Mountain region.

4. In acquiring its S.W. territory from Mexico the United States inherited three kinds of Indians: the Pueblo Indians, the Mission Indians, and the wild tribes. The status of these is most confusing.

5. But the great mass of Indians in the Union are in some sort of relation to the United States and hold their lands by (1) Executive Order, (2) by Treaty or by Act of Congress, (3) by Patent to the tribe, (4) by Patent to individuals.

For the relinquishment of their ancient homes the United States has also entered into agreements to pay to the tribes certain annuities in money and goods. Under these circumstances there are some of them who are the richest communities in the world. In the Osage tribe every man, woman, and child is worth $1500. The five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory and the New York Iroquois preserve their autonomy and make their own laws, but also have a government agent. Many thousand Indians have their lands alloted' and thus have lately become citizens, the title to the land being inalienable for 25 year.t

XII. Physiography of North America.

By

N. S. Shaler,

Professor of Geology in Harvard University.

Although the traveller in North America may be most interested in the people or their social and material accomplishments, he will find it desirable at the outset of his journey to consider the physical conditions of the land, the nature of the climate, soil, and under earth: circumstances which have gone far to determine the history and development of the people who have come to the country from the old world.

The continent of North America is in many ways sharply contrasted with that of Europe. The last-named land consists mainly of great peninsulas and islands, which are geographic dependencies of the great Asiatic field. It is, indeed, a mere fringe of the great Eurasian continent. North America, on the other hand, is a mass of land distinctly separated from other areas, with a relatively undiversified shore, and with an interior country which is but slightly divided into

+ See Rep. Commn. Ind. Aff. (Wash., 1891) and Thayer in Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1891.

e*

isolated areas by distinct geographic features such as seas or mountain chains. This geographic unity of the N. part of the New World is due, as is the case with all its other conspicuous features, to the geological history of the country; it will therefore be well to preface the account of its detailed features by a very brief'description of the steps by which its development was brought about.

In the Laurentian age, the earliest epoch which geologists can trace in the history of the earth, the continent of North America appears to have consisted of certain islands, probably lying in the neighbouring seas beyond the present limits of the land, the positions of which are as yet unknown. In the Cambrian period we find the Laurentian rocks, which were formed on the older sea floors, raised above the ocean level, and constituting considerable islands, the larger of which were grouped about Hudson's Bay, there being smaller isles in the field now occupied by the Appalachian Mountains and in that of the Cordilleras, as we should term those elevations which lie between the E. face of the Rocky Mountains and the ranges which border the Pacific Coast.

From the debris of the ancient islands which prefigured the continent, together with the deposits of organic remains accumulated in the seas, the strata of the Silurian and Devonian ages were formed. These in turn were partly uplifted in dry land, thus adding to the area of the imperfect continent by the growth of its constantly enlarging island nucleus. Yet other marine accumulations, formed in the now shallowed seas, afforded the beginning of the carboniferous strata. The accumulation of these beds and the slow uprising of the land soon brought the continent to a state where there were very extensive low-lying plains forming a large part of what is now the Mississippi Valley, as well as the field now occupied by the Allegheny Mts., which then had not been elevated, and forming a fringe along the E. coast of the continent. On these plains there developed extensive bogs, which from time to time were depressed beneath the level of the sea and buried beneath accumulations of mud and sand, thus affording the beginning of the coal beds which constitute so important a feature in the economic resources of the country.

After the close of the great coal-making time the Allegheny Mountains were uplifted, and the ranges of the Cordilleras begun in earlier times were much increased in extent. From this period of the new red sandstone or Trias, we may fairly date the probable union of the original scattered islands of the continent, which had now taken much the shape it has at present. The great interior sea, the remnant of which now forms the Gulf of Mexico and which in the earlier ages had divided the Cordillerean from the Appalachian lands, still extended as a narrower water far to the N., but in the Jurassic and Cretaceous time, this Mexican Sea shrank away with the uplifting of the land, and its place was occupied by a vast system of fresh water lakes stretching along the E. front of the Rocky Mountains.