OCR Text |
Show 286 WESTERN WILDS. Builders, and it is concluded that the last of them left the Ohio Val-ley a thousand years ago. There is a vast mass of evidence confirma-tory of this view. And, incidentally it may be remarked, that a Mr. Wiley, of Kinderhook, Illinois, in the year 1843, did discover in an ancient mound six bronze plates, curiously corresponding to the de-scription given by Joe Smith of those from which the Book of Mor-mon was translated. Many impartial critics have since concluded that, impostor as he was, Smith did obtain from a mound in New York some kind of curious plates. The entire subject has been strangely neglected by American scholars. The finest mound in Marietta was sold by the city to a private citizen, who carted it away to make brick of! In a similar spirit an English merchant in Greece, who needed some marble for the front of his house, tore down a classic pile which had survived the invasions of Thracian, Roman, Goth and Turk for two thousand years. But there is yet in America evidence enough for some determined antiquarian to decide whether the Toltecs were our ancestors in Ohio. I give this as the latest theory. As for myself, I grew intensely interested in the matter from what I saw in Arizona, and on my re-turn to the States eagerly embraced the first opportunity to investi-gate. I read Baldwin's " Prehistoric America," and was only half convinced; I consulted Stephens and Catherwood, Squier and Davis, and got facts without conclusions. I then examined all the authorities above quoted, and finally came to the deliberate conclusion that the whole subject is considerably mixed. If the reader don't like this theory, he has my permission to construct one of his own. |