_nothing is known about them, nor their builders_. The more refined
writers can be very sentimental on their veiled origin, but scarcely any
one takes the trouble to compare them with others elsewhere, in or out
of America, which would be, however, the only means to attain the object
they seem desirous of, or to unravel their historical riddle. Some
writers speak of them as if they were only a few mounds and graves,
scarcely worthy of notice; yet they are such mounds as are found yet in
the Trojan plains, sung by Homer, dating at least three thousand years
ago, and even by many deemed earlier than the Trojan war, and still
existing to this day to baffle our inquiries: while similar monuments
existing by thousands in the plains of Scythia and Tartary, Persia and
Arabia, as well as the forests and prairies of North America, evince a
striking connexion of purpose and skill by remote ancient nations of
both hemispheres.

But our monuments do not merely consist in such mounds or tumuli, since
we find besides in North America, ruins of cities, some of which were
walled with earth or even stones, real forts or citadels, temples and
altars of all shapes, but chiefly circular, square or polygonal, some
elliptical, hexagonal, octagonal, _&_c., quite regularly pointing to the
cardinal points. We have also traces of buildings, foundations, roads,
avenues, causeways, canals, bridges, dromes, or racecourses, pillars and
pyramids, wells, pits, arenas, _&_c. And of these not a few, but
hundreds of them, many of which are unsurveyed and undescribed as yet.
These, it must be recollected, are all north of Mexico, or the region of
the more perfect monuments of Mexican and Central America, although
often in the same style. There, as in South America, structures are met
of the most elaborate workmanship, of cut and carved stones, with hard
cement, vaulted arches, fine sculptures and even inscriptions. The
materials of our Northern monuments are often ruder, chiefly of earth,
clay, gravel, small stones, or even _shells_ near the sea-shores,
sometimes of _pize_ or beaten and rammed clay, (as in Peru,) unbaked
bricks and rough stones. These facts may confirm the Mexican traditions,
stating that the nations of Anahuac (now Mexico) once dwelt further
north, in our fruitful Western plains, where wood abounded and stones
were scarce, wherefore they built their cities and _t_emples[TN-5] of
wood, raising altars, platforms, walls and entrenchments of