Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/27

 islands, excavated and occupied the valleys of the great lakes, and covered the lowlands down nearly to the Ohio.

Second. By a depression of the land and elevation of temperature, the glaciers retreated northward, leaving, in the interior of the continent, a great basin of fresh water, in which the Erie clays were deposited.

Third. This water was drained away until a broad land surface was exposed within the drift area. Upon this surface grew forests, largely of red and white cedar, inhabited by the elephant, mastodon, giant beaver and other large, now extinct, animals.

Fourth. The submergence of this ancient land and the spreading over it, by iceberg agency, of gravel, sand and boulders, distributed just as icebergs now spread their loads broadcast over the sea bottom on the banks of Newfoundland.

Fifth. The gradual draining-off of the waters, leaving the land now as we find it, smoothly covered with all the layers of the drift, and well pre- pared for human occupation."

"In six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and rested the seventh day," records the Scriptures, and, when all was done, He looked upon the work of His own hands and pronounced it "good." Surely none but a divine, omnipotent hand could have done all this, and none can study the "work of His hands" and not marvel at its completeness.

The ancient dwellers of the Mississippi Valley will always be a subject of great interest to the antiquarian. Who they were, and whence they came, are still unanswered questions, and may remain so for ages. All over this valley, and, in fact, in all parts of the New World, evidences of an ancient civilization exist, whose remains are now a wonder to all. The aboriginal races could throw no light on these questions. They had always seen the remains, and know not whence they came. Explorations aid but little in the solution of the problem, and only conjecture can be entertained. The remains found in Ohio equal any in the Valley. Indeed, some of them are vast in extent, and consist of forts, fortifications, moats, ditches, elevations and mounds, embracing many acres in extent;

"It is not yet determined," says Col. Charles Whittlesey, "whether we have discovered the first or the original people who occupied the soil of Ohio. Modern investigations are bringing to light evidences of earlier races. Since the presence of man has been established in Europe as a contemporary of the fossil elephant, mastodon, rhinoceros and the horse, of the later drift or glacial period, we may reasonably anticipate the presence of man in America in that era. Such proofs are already known, but they are not of that conclusive character which amounts to a demonstration. It is, how- ever, known that an ancient people inhabited Ohio in advance of the red men who were found here, three centuries since, by the Spanish and French explorers.

"Five and six hundred years before the arrival of Columbus," says Col. Charles Whittlesey, "the Northmen sailed from Norway, Iceland and Green- land along the Atlantic coast as far as Long Island. They found Indian tribes, in what is now New En- gland, closely resembling those who lived upon the coast and the St. Lawrence when the French and English came to possess these regions.

"These red Indians had no traditions of a prior people; but over a large part of the lake country and the valley of the Mississippi, earth-works, mounds, pyramids, ditches and forts were discovered — the work of a more ancient race, and a people far in advance of the Indian. If they were not civilized, they were not barbarians. They were not mere hunters, but had fixed habitations, cultivated the soil and were possessed of considerable mechanical skill. We know them as the Mound-Builders, because they erected over the mortal remains of their principal men and women memorial mounds of earth or unhewn stone — of which hundreds remain to our own day, so large and high that they give rise to an impression of the numbers and energy of their builders, such as we receive from the pyramids of Egypt."

Might they not have been of the same race and the same civilization? Many competent authorities conjecture they are the work of the lost tribes of Israel; but the best they or any one can do is only conjecture.

"In the burial-mounds," continues Col. Whittlesey, " there are always portions of one or more human skeletons, generally partly consumed by fire, with ornaments of stone, bone, shells, mica and copper. The largest mound in Ohio is near Miamisburg, Montgomery County. It is the second largest in the West, being nearly seventy feet high, originally, and about eight hundred feet in circumference. This would give a superficial area of nearly four acres. In 1864, the citizens of Miamisburg sunk a shaft from the summit to the natural surface, without finding the bones