Note 1733 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Major Powell says, that years ago he reached the conclusion that the modern Indians must have raised at least some of the mounds in the Mississippi Valley (Bur. of Ethnol. Rept., iv. p. xxx). Cf. also Powell’s paper in Science, x. 267. In the second of these reports (p. 117) Henry W. Henshaw sets forth the views, which the Bureau maintained; and he defended these views in the Amer. Antiquarian, viii. 102. The leading member, however, of the Bureau staff, who is working in this field, is Cyrus Thomas. In the Nat. Mus. Report (1887) he defined the aim and character of the Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology, also issued separately. In this it was stated that over 2,000 mounds had been opened, and 38,000 relics gathered from them; but nothing to afford any clue to the language which the moundbuilders spoke. The conclusions reached were:—