This would imply the government by the council, and while the rulers may have been hereditary, the officers of the tribe were probably elective, and could be deposed for cause. We do not mean to assert that this is an exact picture of the state of government of the Mound Builders, because our knowledge on this point is not sufficient to make such a positive statement, but it is far more likely to be true than the picture of a despotic government, ruling from some capital seat a large extent of country, holding a court with barbaric pomp and circumstances such as some writers would have us believe. We hope our readers have not been wearied by this somewhat extended investigation of the Mound Builders. Every storm that beats upon their works tends to level them. The demands of our modern life are fast obliterating the remaining monuments and, indeed, it is now only those which are situated in favorable localities, or are massive in construction, that are left for our inspection. But these nearly obliterated records of the past are of more than passing interest to us as monuments of the prehistoric times of our own country. We wander over these ruins and find much to interest us, much to excite our curiosity. The purposes of many are utterly unknown. Some, by their great proportions, awaken in us feelings of admiration for the perseverance and energy of their builders. But when we investigate the objects of stone, of clay, and of copper this people left behind them, we notice how hard it is to draw a dividing line between them and the Indians. In fact, there is no good reason for separating them from the Indian race as a whole. We do not mean to say that they were not, in many respects, different from the tribes found in the same section of the country by the early explorers, though, we ought, perhaps, to confine this remark to the central portion of the country occupied by these ancient remains. But the American of to-day differs from the American of early Colonial times. The miserable natives of Southern California were Indians, but very different indeed from the ambitious, warlike Iroquois, who displayed so much statesmanship in the formation of their celebrated league. In another chapter we shall discuss this part of our subject, as well as the question of the antiquity of the ruins. REFERENCES (1) The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum of Archæology and Ethnology, Harvard University, for criticism. (2) Conant’s “Footprints of Vanished Races,” p. 122.