Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — The Sciences Among the Mound Builders. [ARTICLE]

The Sciences Among the Mound Builders.

The Mound-builders possessed some knowledge of astronomy, and at least had a practical knowledge of geometry and engineering. Their structures are always found in places which would now be selected by engineers for works designed to subserve similar purposes. It is a remarkable fact that the pyramidal mounds of the South have their faces to the cardinal points of the compass. In enclosed spaces it is found that the gates are always at the side looking toward the east. The pyramidal mound near Florence, Ala., though for years subjected to the disintegrating influence of the farmer’s plowshare, is still seventy feethigh, and covers at its base about one acre of ground. In Chickasaw County, Miss., there is a line of five mounds, extending from north to south. These are all of the pyramidal form. The largest of these is that in the center of the line. It is sixty-seven feet high, 190 wide from north to south and 260 feet from east to west at the base. The others are smaller, the smallest being at the north and south. These mounds were surrounded by a wall of earth enclosing thirty-six acres of land. The remains of the walls are still distinct. The lines are straight, north, south, east and west. The gateway to the enclosure was directly in front of the great mound, at the east side. These mounds were evidently, at one time, crowned by temples. = As another evidence that the Moundbuilders had some knowledge of practical engineering, the highways, whose general direction may still be traced for many miles, may be cited. There are two somewhat remarkable groups of mounds in Tipton County, Tenn. These mounds are not of large size, except in one or two instances, but on some other accounts they possess an interest which does not often attach to these memorials of an extinct race. The first is situated some three or four miles to the southwest of Mason’s depot, on a ridge dividing the waters of the East Beaver from those of the Middle Beaver creeks. There are about eleven of these mounds in the group, but they are of the small conical sort, and would not be likely to attract very much attention from the casual observer. About ten miles a little south of west from the first-named group on the margin of a smalt stream, an affluent of the West Beaver, there is another group of mounds somewhat larger than those above described. Those moucds are pyramidal, and some of them are of large size. They are evidently very ancient works. On one of these, which was about ten feet high above the surrounding level, about 800 feet long and 200 feet wide, Dr. Christopher Dickson formerly resided, having crowned the mound with a neat country residence.

Between these two groups there is a dense cypress-brake situated in the marshy basin of the Middle Beaver Creek. This cypress swamp covers an area of about one and a half souare miles. Extending across this swamp, in precisely an air-line direction between the two groups of mounds, is a sort of levee, raised even yet two or three feet above the marshy lard through Which it passes. This ancient roadway is straight as a line, cutting the swamp directly through for the distance of more than a mile. From thia fact there ean be no doubt that the Mound-builders knew how to run lines and build roads. Col. Louis J. Dupree, editor of the Austin (Texas) Statesman, has given much attention to the subject of the archeology of the Mississippi Valley, and his observations, contributed to Appleion't Journal and to the Southern Magaxine are of no small value. Col, Dupree has personally examined many of the remains of the Mound-builders found In the valley, and

he has traced a well-defined line of defensive works, extending from the BL Francis to the White River, across the countiy In Arkansas. He finds evidence that a mighty straggle once took place in the valley of the Upper White River between the Mound-builders, who had been grad* ually pressed back by the hordes of bar* barians from the North, and had made their final stand, met with an overwhelming overthrow and were destroyed or forced to flee. It was the Armageddon of the Mound-builders, and we are assured that a vast field of human bones yet exists in that region. The character of the works examined by Dupree go to prove that the Moundbuilders knew the art of defensive construction. Prof. Edward Fontaine in his work “How the World was Peopled,’’ goes further, and expresses the opinion that the bayou system of the Southern valley was once utilized for purposes of transportation; that the levees to prevent inundations built by the Mound builders may still be traced along the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers south of Memphis, and, finally, that these people well understood the physics and hydraulics Of the Missis* Bippi River. These remains of their work prove that among the Mound-builders there were engineers of no small ability —the Capt. Eadses of their era. We may thus infer from an examination of the situation of the mounds, whether erected for sacred purposes as outlooks or as works of defense, showing admirable engineering skill, and from tracing the highways and levees which they contracted, that the Mound-builders were not destitute of the higher faculties of constructive art. They may have had bridges and handsome boats, out time has obliterated every trace of these perishable things.— St. Louie Republican.