after the lapse of ages, copper. The researches of our antiquaries
have rendered it probable that America is as ancient, as an inhabited
continent, as Europe. Evidences have been brought to light, leading to
the conclusion that many thousands of years before the Christian era,
America was the seat of a civilization far from rude or savage. Groping
into the remains of the far past, we find skeletons, skulls, implements
of war, and even basket-work, buried in geological strata, which have
been overlaid by repeated convulsions and changes of the physical earth.
But so few are the relics of this dim, primeval period, that we can
only conclude its antiquity, and we can infer little or nothing of its
characteristics.

[Sidenote: Primeval Races.]

Advancing, however, another stage in research and discovery, we come
upon clear and overwhelming proofs of the existence on this continent of
a great, enterprising, skilful, and even artistic people, spread over an
immense area, and leaving behind them the most positive testimony, not
only of their existence, but of their manners and customs, their arts,
their trade, their methods of warfare, and their religion and worship.
Compared with this people, the Red Indians found here by the Pilgrims
and the Cavaliers were modern intruders upon the land. These ancient
Americans, indeed, were far superior in all respects to the Red Indian
of our historic acquaintance. When the Red Indians replaced them, the
civilization of the continent fell from a high to a much lower plane.

[Sidenote: The Mound-Builders.]

The great race of which I speak is known as "the Mound-Builders." Like
the "Wall-Builders" of Greece and Italy, they stand out, in the light of