OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 69
the mounds, of sculptured tablets, bearing hieroglyphical or alphabetical inscriptions. Nothing, to which it would be possible to assign any such extraordinary character, has been discovered by the writer and his associate, in the course of their investigations ; nor does it seem likely that any thing like an alphabetical or hieroglyphical system existed among the mound-builders. The earth-works and their contents certainly establish that, prior to the occupa- tion of the Mississippi valley by the tribes found in posses- sion by the Europeans, there existed here a numerous people, possessing a different social, and probably a different civil organization—an agricultural people, considerably advanced in the arts, and undoubtedly, in most respects, superior to the hunter tribes with which we are acquainted. There is no evidence, however, that their condition was any thing more than a limited approximation to that at- tained by the ancient Mexicans, Central Americans, and Peruvians, which nations had made but the first advance towards an alphabet. Whether they had progressed fur- ther than to a refinement on the picture-writing of the savage tribes, is not yet considered established. It would be unwarrantable, therefore, to assign to the race of the mounds a superiority in this respect over these nations, which were so much in advance of them in all others. It would be a practical reversal of the philosophic teachings of History, an exception to the laws of progress, which it would require a large array of well attested facts to sus- tain. Such an array of facts we do not yet possess.
Although numerous announcements of the discovery of plates of stone or metal, bearing inscriptions, have been made, there are but two tablets to which a hieroglyphical or alphabetical character has been assigned, which are sufficiently well authenticated to deserve notice, viz., one said to have been found in the celebrated Grave Creek mound, the other in a mound near Cincinnati.
The following engraving is a reduced copy of the relic
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