Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/35

 Rh erected so long ago that not even the faintest tradition remains to tell who built them.

They were a very civilized race, these Mound Builders, very different from the savages who surrounded them, or who have since swept over the country they once occupied.

They extended their sway, we know, as far north as Lake Superior, because old shafts have been discovered in the copper mines there, and detached masses of copper ore, with the wedges and chisels they used at their work. This was but an outpost of theirs, for their great works were in the south. Everything seemed to indicate, also, that they came from the south. Besides axes, adzes, lance-heads, knives, etc., found in these mounds, explorers have also unearthed pottery of elegant design, ornaments of silver, bone and mica, and of shell from the Gulf of Mexico. But there have been found there implements of obsidian, a volcanic product once used by the ancient Mexicans for spear-heads, arrow-heads, and knives. This shows that this people had connection with Mexico, if they had not originally come from there, since this volcanic glass, obsidian, "is found in its natural state nowhere nearer the Mississippi valley than the Mexican mountains of Cerro Gordo."

There are evidences, likewise, that they possessed the art of spinning and weaving, which was unknown to the Indians of the north, but practised years ago by those of the south—of the West Indies and Mexico. Now, it would seem that these great Mound Builders, when they were driven from this country, took a southerly direction, and at last arrived in Mexico. It is much pleasanter to think this than that they were crushed out of existence entirely; and there is a great deal to prove that this was actually the case, and that they were identical with those Toltecs who came down into Mexico twelve hundred and fifty years ago.