A rock covered with inscriptions, known as the Dighton Writing Rock, situated on the banks of the Taunton River, in Massachusetts, was long pointed out as of Norse origin, and Rafn, the Danish antiquary, pronounced the script which it bore to be runic. With equal perspicacity Court de Gébelin and Dr. Styles saw in it a Phoenician inscription. It is, in fact, quite certain that the writing is of Indian origin, as similar rock-carvings occur over the length and breadth of the northern sub-continent. Almost as doubtful are the theories which would make the 'old mill' at Newport a Norse 'biggin.' However authentic the Norse settlements in America may be, it is certain that the Norsemen left no traces of their occupation in that continent, and although the building at Newport distinctly resembles the remains of Norse architecture in {17} Greenland, the district in which it is situated is quite out of the sphere of Norse settlement in North America. The Mound-Builders The question of the antiquity of the Red Race in North America is bound up with an archæological problem which bristles with difficulties, but is quite as replete with interest. In the Mississippi basin and the Gulf States, chiefly from La Crosse, Wisconsin, to Natchez, Miss., and in the central and southern districts of Ohio, and in the adjoining portion of Indiana and South Wisconsin, are found great earthen mounds, the typical form of which is pyramidal. Some, however, are circular, and a few pentagonal. Others are terraced, extending outward from one or two sides, while some have roadways leading up to the level surface on the summit. These are not mere accumulations of _débris_, but works constructed on a definite plan, and obviously requiring a considerable amount of skill and labour for their accomplishment. "The form, except where worn down by the plough, is usually that of a low, broad, round-topped cone, varying in size from a scarcely perceptible swell in the ground to elevations of eighty or even a hundred feet, and from six to three hundred feet in diameter."[5] [5] _Bulletin 30_, Bureau of American Ethnology. Mounds in Animal Form Many of these structures represent animal forms, probably the totem or eponymous ancestor of the tribe which reared them. The chief centre for these singular erections seems to have been Wisconsin, where they are very numerous. The eagle, wolf, bear, turtle, and fox are represented, and even the human form has been {18} attempted. There are birds with outstretched wings, measuring more than thirty-two yards from tip to tip, and great mammalian forms sixty-five yards long. Reptilian forms are also numerous. These chiefly represent huge lizards. At least one mound in the form of a spider, whose body and legs cover an acre of ground, exists in Minnesota.