discovery, and as we have no evidence, unless derived from the
mounds, of its having ever been occupied by any other people,
every fact indicating a similarity between the arts, customs, and
social life of the mound-builders and those of the red Indians, is
an evidence of the identity of the two peoples. The greater the
number of these resemblances, the greater the probability of the
correctness of the theory, so long as we find nothing
irreconcilable with it.

Architecture.--One of the first circumstances which strike the
mind of the archaeologist who carefully studies these works as
being very significant, is the entire absence of any evidence in
them of architectural knowledge and skill approaching that
exhibited by the ruins of Mexico and Central America, or even
equaling that exhibited by the Pueblo Indians.

It is true that truncated pyramidal mounds of large size and
somewhat regular proportions are found in certain sections, and
that some of these have ramps or roadways leading up to them. Yet
when compared with the pyramids or teocalli of Mexico and Yucatan
the differences in the manifestations of architectural skill are
so great, and the resemblances are so faint and few, as to furnish
no grounds whatever for attributing the two classes of works to
the same people. The facts that the works of the one people
consist chiefly of wrought and sculptured stone, and that such
materials are wholly unknown to the other, forbid the idea of any
relationship between the two. The difference between the two
classes of monuments indicates a wide divergence--a complete step
--in the culture status.