Were all the mounds and other ancient works found in that part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains (except such as are manifestly the work of Europeans of post-Columbian times) built by the Indians found in possession of this region at the time of its discovery and their ancestors, or are they in part to be attributed to other more civilized races or peoples, as the Aztecs, Toltecs, Pueblo tribes, or some lost race of which we possess no historical mention? I say in part, as it has long been conceded, that some of these works are to be attributed to the Indians. If it can be shown that some of the mounds and other works of all the different types and classes found in the Mississippi Valley and Gulf States were built by Indians, or even that they were built by people in the same stage of culture and art and having the same customs and habits as the Indians of this region in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we shall be justified in concluding that the rest are the work of the same race and of the same tribes, or those, closely allied in habits, customs, art, and culture. That here and there a single mound-building tribe may have become extinct or absorbed into other tribes in pre-Columbian times, as has been the fate of some since the discovery of the continent, does not alter the case, unless it be claimed that such tribes belonged to different "American stocks" and had reached a higher degree of culture than those found in this part of the continent at the time of the arrival of the Europeans. No one believes that we will ever be able to ascertain the history of the construction of each mound and earthwork; the utmost to be hoped is that we may be able to determine with satisfactory certainty that such and such works were built by such and such tribes. But one step in the investigation is to reach the general conclusion as to whether all classes of these remains in the region designated may justly be attributed to the Indians, or whether there are some types which must be ascribed to a different race, to a people that had attained a higher position in the scale of civilization than the Indians. This it is possible to accomplish, without being able to determine conclusively what tribe erected any particular work. Nevertheless the conclusion will be strengthened by every proof that the works of certain sections are to be ascribed to certain tribes or stocks. It is for this reason that I propose to discuss somewhat briefly the question of the probable authorship of the works in the Appalachian district. THE CHEROKEES PROBABLY MOUND-BUILDERS. In 1876, Prof. Lucien Carr, assistant curator of the Peabody Museum, opened a mound in Lee County, Virginia, in which he made certain discoveries which, with the form of the mound and the historical data, led him to the conclusion that it was the work of the Cherokees.