Our investigation has now come to an end. I have led you to examine the few fragments of a civilization which it would be absurd to declare to have been of the very highest type, but yet of a character much above that of the wandering tribes, which, with their well-known thirst for blood, destroyed the very arts and useful habits which might have bettered their condition. The whirlwind of barbarian fury is ever one which fills peaceful nations with terror. We may remember how near in the "Agony of Canada," the French power was to being swept out of existence by the fierce fury of the Iroquois--up to that time always victorious. We may remember how civilization in Minnesota was thrown back by the Sioux massacre of 1861. It is only now by persistent and unwearied efforts that we can hope to conquer the Indians by the arts of peace, and by inducing him to take the hoe in place of the tomahawk, to meet nature's obstacles. Who can fail to heave a sigh for our northern mound builders, and to lament the destruction of so vast and civilized a race as the peaceful Toltecans of Mexico, of the Mississippi, and of the Ohio, to which our Takawgamis belonged? After all, their life must in the main, ever remain a mystery. THE LOST RACE "One of our visits to the mound was at night." Oh, silent mound! thy secret tell! God's acre gazing toward the sky, 'Midst sombre shade 'neath angel's eye Thou sleepest till the domesday knell. Sweet leaflets, on the towering elms. Oh whisper from your crested height! Or have lost forests borne from sight The secret to their buried realms? Stay, babbling river, hurrying past, Cans't thou, who saw'st the toilers build, Not picture on thy bosom stilled, Life-speaking shadows long since cast? Or, echo, mocking us with sound, Repeat the busy voice, we pray, Of moiling thousands, now dull clay, And waken up the gloom profound. Pale, shimmering ghosts that flit around, While spade and mattock death-fields glean, Open with words from the unseen The mysteries now in cerements bound. No answer yet! We gaze in vain. With lamp and lore let science come. Now, clear eyed maiden!!--You, too, dumb! Your light gone out!!--'tis night again. And is this all? an earthen pot! A broken spear! a copper pin! Earth's grandest prizes counted in, A burial mound!--the common lot! Yes! this were all; but o'er the mound, The stars, that fill the midnight sky, Are eyes from Heaven that watch on high Till domesday's thrilling life-note sound. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES Page 9 (b): The following changes have been made from the original text: come changed to came (it came from a distant locality); impliments changed to implements (crushed in by one of these implements.)