Mausoleums reared with many hands, inscriptionless monuments, tombs without epitaphs! Whose ashes rest beneath your storm-beaten, time-scarred surfaces? what prowess could you boast beyond your peers? was it the hand of violence or disease that severed the silver cord, and ushered you into the presence of the Great Spirit? We may continue to question, but the locked secrets of by-gone deeds will be borne on no zephyr, however soft, to gratify the longings of those who try to lift the misty veil of obscurity. When searching for a record of the architects of these pyramidal structures, we find our mind drifting upon the quicksands of instability. That the archæological history of the mound-builders in America is in its infancy cannot be doubted, although some imagine they have probed it to the foundation, as they have stood where a few bones, beads, and pottery were thrown out. Mounds are not limited to America, but are found in Europe and Asia, although dignified by different titles--as barrows, moat-hills, and cairns--all belonging to the same family as our earth-mounds. The Indians say that before the "pale faces" scattered them, they had mounds erected for different purposes--for sepulture, for sacrifice, for signals, for refuge in war, and the residence of the cazique. The first and most frequent of these was for sepulture. Homer and Hesiod both speak of monumental mounds over the graves of heroes. While surveying these colossal works, reared by hands of clay, a wonder seizes our minds how the almost nude aborigines, with so limited a number of implements, could collect so much material, and fashion it into any form adapted to their necessities. It is true, they had some knowledge of the manner in which stone could be utilized, as chert and flint have both been found in the oldest earth-works, several feet below the surface--from which also can be deduced facts with reference to their roving habits of life, as this formation does not exist naturally in Florida. The strong argument against Florida not having been the first location of the inhabitants who built these earth-works, is their tendency toward the West, not being found on the Atlantic coast, showing the course of emigration to have been from the West to the South. These structures also indicate strength, and not the hasty work of a nomadic tribe, having once been the site of a vast population. The Florida mounds, unlike those of the Mexicans, bear no marks of magnificence or grandeur, but are of gigantic proportions, in consideration of the appliances with which they had to work, not having either plow or draft animals. They are the only records left us for determining the habits, occupation, and manner of living, of its former residents, which, if more enduring, are scarcely less satisfactory than a foot-print in the sand, as a guide to the pursuits and inclinations of its owner.