Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 1).djvu/67

Rh survey: that the lesser streams have never been used to any large degree as routes of travel by the white race, or by the red race before them. It is thus reasonable to believe that the earliest people, who so largely inhabited the interior valleys, found land travel more sure and expeditious than water travel on the little streams. A great many mound-building people lived by these smaller streams where so many of their works now stand. That they had ways of getting about the country goes without saying. In some instances the earth and stone with which they worked was brought from a distance. This could not have been accomplished by any means by water. We know they fought great battles; it is exceedingly doubtful and all against the lesson taught in times that are historic, that these armies traveled water routes. True, there were watch "towers" along the river banks, and the rivers of real size were undoubtedly the routes of armies—but it has been the opinion of some archæologists that their enemies came from the north. There are no rivers flowing from the interior of Ohio, for instance, to Lake Erie that