Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 1).djvu/101

Rh highway for traffic and war parties, but the movements of tribes were across it rather than up and down it This is not asserted as a mere theory or simple deduction, but as a fact proved by the mounds themselves, whatever may be the theory in regard to their origin or uses."

It is for future scholarship to point out to us the origin, movements, and destiny of this earliest race after a careful comparative study of the remains which contain all we know of them. But may we not believe that the great watersheds were to them what they have been for every other race which has occupied this land? We submit: the greater watersheds should be carefully considered in connection with the study and classification of the various kinds of prehistoric remains with a view to solving the question of the movements of the mound-building Indians in America. The purpose of the first part of this monograph has been accomplished by pointing out some reasons for the belief that these early people opened the first landward passage-