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TROPICAL NATUREprominence.Other examples have the nose somewhat projectingat the apex in a manner quite unlike the features ofany American indigenes and; although there are some whichshow a much coarser face, it is very difficult to see in any ofthem that close resemblance to the Indian type which thesesculptures have been said to exhibit. The few authenticcrania from the mounds present corresponding features, beingfar more symmetrical and better developed in the frontalregion than those of any American tribes, although somewhatresembling them in the occipital outline; 1 while one wasdescribed by its discoverer (Mr. W. Marshall Anderson) as a" beautiful skull, worthy of a Greek."The antiquity of this remarkable race may perhaps notbe very great as compared with the prehistoric man of Europe,although the opinion of some writers on the subject seemsaffected by that " parsimony of time " on which the late SirCharles Lyell so often dilated. The mounds are all overgrownwith dense forest, and one of the large trees wasestimated to be 800 years old, while other observers considerthe forest growth to indicate an age of at least 1000 years.But it is well known that it requires several generations oftrees to pass away before the growth on a deserted clearingcomes to correspond with that of the surrounding virginforest, while this forest, once established, may go on growingfor an unknown number of thousands of years. The 800 or1000 years estimate from the growth of existing vegetationis a minimum which has no bearing whatever on the actualage of these mounds ;and we might almost as well attemptto determine the time of the glacial epoch from the age ofthe pines or oaks which now grow on the moraines.The important thing for us, however, is that when NorthAmerica was first settled by Europeans, the Indian tribesinhabiting it had no knowledge or tradition of any precedingrace of higher civilisation than themselves. Yet we find thatsuch a race existed that they must have been populous andhave lived under some established government while there;are signs that they practised agriculture largely, as, indeed,they must have done to have supported a population capableof executing such gigantic works in such vast profusion ;for1 Wilson's Prehistoric Man, 3d ed., vol. ii. pp. 123-130.