NEW DISCOVERIES TOUCHING THE MOUNDBUILDERS, THE VANISHED RACE VIEW, THE INDIAN THEORY, THE INCA, TOLTEC, ASIATIC, EGYPTIAN, IRISH WELSH AND "LOST TRIBE" SPECULATIONS.

Like a God-created, fire-breathing spirit host, we emerge from the inane, haste stormfully across the astonished earth, then plunge again into the inane.  On the hardest adamant some footprint of us is stamped in; the last rear of the host will read traces of the earliest van.  But whence?  O heaven, whither?  Sense knows not faith knows not, only that it is through mystery to mystery, from God to God.
                                                                           - Carlyle's "sartor Resartus."

     All the wisdom of the Orient, of Egypt, of Greece and Rome tells us naught of our land or its people in those dim and shadowy ages when the Chinese, Chaldeans, Egyptians and Persians comprised the known population of the world.  The secret of those thousands of years is locked in the breast of Nature.  Forest after forest has come and gone, rivers have left their ancient shores, plains have come and bottom lands.  Against the blue dusk of summer skies and the gray cold of winter clouds, the eyes of Unknown Man lifted to the same old rolling line of hills, those heights eternal, dumb watches of fathomless time looking down on human ages in stormful passage to oblivion.
     The vast rivers of melting ice spreading from hillside to hillside in glacial man's day slowly receded in course of ages to their present beds, leaving exposed broad plains and valleys for the use of that Other Man who has baffled our understanding.  In his earthworks and stoneworks lies hidden the mystery of ages.  What story of human activity, of weird ceremonies, perhaps sacrificial terrors, may belong to these mute symbols of a voiceless past.  Weed-grown and brush-covered, some today are but faintly traced in brier-tangled field and wood, while the plow has worn down others until there is left only a dim outline where not many years ago there circled in bold relief a breast-high wall of earth.
     From the variety and extent of these earthworks within our county's borders, ranging from circles and huge enclosures to mounds large and small, and from the vast labor necessarily involved, whether

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the earth was carried in baskets or otherwise, we have sufficient evidence that this was a populous center of that ancient race engaging the attention of the archaeological world.  Whether or not it was a mighty power that held sway in the primeval forest, a people skilled in arts of peace as well as war, we can only conjecture from the inscrutable character of the ruins that mark the passing of this lost race.
    For most of us the vanished race view is till the more plausible despite the weight of testimony addduced by archaeological authority in support of the Indian theory of our Moundbuilders' origin.  All local knowledge which as come down to us regarding the red men who existed here absolves them readily from the suspicion of undertaking anything so nearly approaching real work as the building of these mounds.  Whatever else may be charged to our noble red men during their residence in this region, we hesitate about accusing them of overcoming their haughty disdain for labor to the extent of digging up tons and tons of earth and heaping it into walls and mounds.  The Coshocton Indian's popular idea of a wall was a tepee skin or bark of a tree, and for a fortification it was far less troublesome and vastly more to his liking to simply dodge behind a rock.
     Of course, any discussion of hte Moundbuilders problem is expected to be characterized by reserve.  We can only approach the subject by cautiously venturing to inquire without presuming to decide, especially where eminent authorities in the scientific world have so hopelessly disagreed. There are those, we are told, who have written much but added little to real knowledge of the subject; more who have only borrowed from others; some who have made sober observations; some far from sober; and some who have compiled descriptions with worthless comment.
     In this region, doubly important among American localities as a prehistoric and historic center, the student has the advantage of personal contact with such evidence as remains.  To that extent at least what views are formed may deal with facts, not surmise.
     Special attention is drawn to the extensive earthwork on a precipitous ridge of the Winfield Miller estate along the Walhonding near Coshocton.  A circle swings around the whole summit of the hill.  Through the fringe of woods the view seeps the valley of the Walhonding.  Down the steep hillside is a drop of two hundred feet

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to the road.  There are only a few of these high hilltop enclosures reported in Ohio.
     W. K. Moorehead, curator of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, reporting a visit to the circle on this hill a dozen

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they at least understood some sort of mechanical process, giving a revolving motion to their clay.  Their implements and ornaments disclose their art in stone, and by the same token illustrate their migrations and intertribal traffic.
     Theirs was a life of peace and war until the climax was reached and the tragedy culminated in devastation and ruin.  After that, an appalling stillness with the fall of the curtain, to rise again on this stage where the tragedies of the red man awakened the forest echoes once more with terrifying voice.

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