Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly (good books to read txt) 📖

seems to me, could only be produced by heat; and if it is admitted that. these are genuine relies of the Mound Builders, it must, at the same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult art of plating one metal upon another. There is but one alternative, viz., that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people advanced in the arts, from whom these articles were obtained. Again, if Dr. Hildreth is not mistaken, oxydized iron or steel was also discovered in connection with the above remains, from which also follows the extraordinary conclusion that the Mound Builders were acquainted with the use of iron, the conclusion being, of course, subject to the improbable alternative already mentioned.”

In connection with this subject, we would refer to the interesting evidences that the copper mines of the shore of Lake Superior had been at some very remote period worked by the Mound Builders. There were found deep excavations, with rude ladders, huge masses of rock broken off, also numerous stone tools, and all the evidences of extensive and long-continued labor. It is even said that the great Ontonagon mass of pure copper which is now in Washington was excavated by these ancient miners, and that when first found its surface showed numerous marks of their tools.

There seems to be no doubt, then, that the Mound Builders were familiar with the use of copper, silver, and lead, and in all probability of iron. They possessed various mechanical contrivances. They were very probably acquainted with the lathe. Beads of shell have been found looking very much like ivory, and showing the circular striæ, identical with those produced by turning in a lathe.

In a mound on the Scioto River was found around the neck of a skeleton triple rows of beads, made of marine shells and the tusks of some animal. “Several of these,” says Squier, “still retain their polish, and bear marks which seem to indicate that they were turned in some machine, instead of being carved or rubbed into shape by hand.”

“Not among the least interesting and remarkable relies,” continues the same author, “obtained from the mounds are the stone tubes. They are all carved from fine-grained materials, capable of receiving a polish, and being made ornamental as well as useful. The finest specimen yet discovered, and which can scarcely be surpassed in the delicacy of its workmanship, was found in a mound in the immediate vicinity of Chillicothe. It is composed of a compact variety of slate. This stone cuts with great clearness, and receives a fine though not glaring polish. The tube under notice is thirteen inches long by one and one-tenth in diameter; one end swells slightly, and the other terminates in a broad, flattened, triangular mouth-piece of fine proportions, which is carved with mathematical precision. It is drilled throughout; the bore is seven-tenths of an inch in diameter at the cylindrical end of the tube, and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the cylinder subsides into the mouth-piece, when it contracts gradually to one-tenth of an inch. The inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth till within a short distance of the point of contraction. For the remaining distance the circular striæ, formed by the drill in boring, are distinctly marked. The carving upon it is very fine.”

That they possessed saws is proved by the fact that on some fossil teeth found in one of the mounds the striæ of the teeth of the saw could be distinctly perceived.

When we consider that some of their porphyry carvings will turn the edge of the best-tempered knife, we are forced to conclude that they possessed that singular process, known to the Mexicans and Peruvians of tempering copper to the hardness of steel.

We find in the mounds adzes similar in shape to our own, with the edges bevelled from the inside.

Drills and gravers of copper have also been found, with chisel-shaped edges or sharp points.

“It is not impossible,” says Squier, “but, on the contrary, very probable, from a close inspection of the mound pottery, that the ancient people possessed the simple approximation toward the potter’s wheel; and the polish which some of the finer vessels possess is due to other causes than vitrification.”

Their sculptures show a considerable degree of progress. They consist of figures of birds, animals, reptiles, and the faces of men, carved from various kinds of stones, upon the bowls of pipes, upon toys, upon rings, and in distinct and separate figures. We give the opinions of those who have examined them.

Mr. Squier observes: “Various though not abundant specimens of their skill have been recovered, which in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fineness of material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in many respects, a close resemblance. The bowls of most of the stone pipes are carved in miniature figures of animals, birds, reptiles, etc. All of them are executed with strict fidelity to nature, and with exquisite skill. Not only are the features of the objects faithfully represented, but their peculiarities and habits. are in some degree exhibited. . . . The two heads here presented, intended to represent the eagle, are far superior in point of finish, spirit, and truthfulness, to any miniature carvings, ancient or modern, which have fallen under the notice of the authors.

The peculiar defiant expression of the king of birds is admirably preserved in the carving, which in this respect, more than any other, displays the skill of the artist.”

FROM THE MOUNDS OF THE OHIO VALLEY

Traces of cloth with “doubled and twisted fibre” have been found in the mounds; also matting; also shuttle-like tablets, used in weaving. There have also been found numerous musical pipes, with mouth-pieces and stops; lovers’ pipes, curiously and delicately carved, reminding us of Bryant’s lines—

“Till twilight came, and lovers walked and wooed In a forgotten language; and old tunes, From instruments of unremembered forms, Gave the soft winds a voice.”

There is evidence which goes to prove that the Mound Builders had relations with the people of a semi-tropical region in the direction of Atlantis, Among their sculptures, in Ohio, we find accurate representations of the lamantine, manatee, or sea-cow—found to-day on the shores of Florida, Brazil, and Central America—and of the toucan, a tropical and almost exclusively South American bird. Sea-shells from the Gulf, pearls from the Atlantic, and obsidian from Mexico, have also been found side by side in their mounds.

The antiquity of their works is now generally conceded. “From the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,” says Mr. Gliddon, “we have bones of at least two thousand five hundred years old; from the pyramids and the catacombs of Egypt both mummied and unmummied crania have been taken, of still higher antiquity, in perfect preservation; nevertheless, the skeletons deposited in our Indian mounds, from the Lakes to the Gulf, are crumbling into dust through age alone.”

All the evidence points to the conclusion that civilized or semi-civilized man has dwelt on the western continent from a vast antiquity. Maize, tobacco, quinoa, and the mandico plants have been cultivated so long that their wild originals have quite disappeared.

“The only species of palm cultivated by the South American Indians, that known as the Gulielma speciosa, has lost through that culture its original nut-like seed, and is dependent on the hands of its cultivators for its life. Alluding to the above-named plants Dr. Brinton (“Myths of the New World,” p. 37) remarks, ‘Several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care. What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and lost all resemblance to its original form?’ In the animal kingdom certain animals were domesticated by the aborigines from so remote a period that scarcely any of their species, as in the case of the lama of Peru, were to be found in a state of unrestrained freedom at the advent of the Spaniards.” (Short’s “North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 11.) The most ancient remains of man found in Europe are distinguished by a flattening of the tibia; and this peculiarity is found to be present in an exaggerated form in some of the American mounds. This also points to a high antiquity.

“None of the works, mounds, or enclosures are found on the lowest formed of the river terraces which mark the subsidence of the streams, and as there is no good reason why their builders should have avoided erecting them on that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all the others, it follows, not unreasonably, that this terrace has been formed since the works were erected.” (Baldwin’s “Ancient America,” p. 47.) We have given some illustrations showing the similarity between the works of the Mound Builders and those of the Stone and Bronze Age in Europe. (See pp. 251, 260, 261, 262, 265, 266, ante.) The Mound Builders retreated southward toward Mexico, and probably arrived there some time between A.D. 29 and A.D. 231, under the name of Nahuas. They called the region they left in the Mississippi Valley “Hue Hue Tlapalan”—the old, old red land—in allusion, probably, to the red-clay soil of part of the country.

In the mounds we find many works of copper but none of bronze. This may indicate one of two things: either the colonies which settled the Mississippi Valley may have left Atlantis prior to the discovery of the art of manufacturing bronze, by mixing one part of tin with nine parts of copper, or, which is more probable, the manufactures of the Mound Builders may have been made on the spot; and as they had no tin within their territory they used copper alone, except, it may be, for such tools as were needed to carve stone, and these, perhaps, were hardened with tin. It is known that the Mexicans possessed the art of manufacturing true bronze; and the intercourse which evidently existed between Mexico and the Mississippi Valley, as proved by the presence of implements of obsidian in the mounds of Ohio, renders it probable that the same commerce which brought them obsidian brought them also small quantities of tin, or tin-hardened copper implements necessary for their sculptures.

The proofs, then, of the connection of the Mound Builders with Atlantis are:

1. Their race identity with the nations of Central America who possessed Flood legends, and whose traditions all point to an eastern, over-sea origin; while the many evidences of their race identity with the ancient Peruvians indicate that they were part of one great movement of the human race, extending from the Andes to Lake Superior, and, as I believe, from Atlantis to India.

2. The similarity of their civilization, and their works of stone and bronze, with the civilization of the Bronze Age in Europe.

3. The presence of great truncated mounds, kindred to the pyramids of Central America, Mexico, Egypt, and India.

4. The representation of tropical animals, which point to an intercourse with the regions around the Gulf of Mexico, where the Atlanteans were colonized.

5. The fact that the settlements of the Mound Builders were confined to the valley of the Mississippi, and were apparently densest at those points where a population advancing up that, stream would first reach high, healthy, and fertile lands.

6. The hostile nations which attacked them came from the north; and when the Mound Builders could no longer hold the country, or when Atlantis stink in the sea, they retreated in the direction whence they came, and fell back