Ohio Researches into
Archaeology. 151
incidentally in correcting a number of
errors with regard to the
ancient monuments of Ohio, due to the
superficial nature of the
examinations and measurements made by
different writers, and
the errors, deliberate or otherwise, in
their descriptions. The
book is a most valuable contribution to
archaeology, and the state
society is to be congratulated upon its
enterprise in securing its
preparation and publication.
OHIO RESEARCHES INTO ARCHAEOLOGY.
[The following is from the pen of the
distinguished author, Frank
B. Sanborn, who was the guest of the
Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Society at its annual
meeting, June 6, 1902. The article here
produced first appeared in the Springfield
Republican of Springfield, Mass.
-E. O. R.]
The barbarous archaeology of North
America has been re-
ceiving great attention of late years,
especially in Ohio, where
its more important monuments are; and
now Gerard Fowke,
backed by the Ohio Archaeological
Society, whose president is
Gen. Brinkerhoff of Mansfield, and its
secretary E. O. Randall
of Columbus, has written the
"Archaeological History of Ohio,"
at much length and with many engravings,
to describe the work
of the mound builders in that state and
near its borders, and to
illustrate the character of our
aboriginies, who must have built
the great works and furnished the wars
and burials and religious
rites for which they were built. No such
complete single volume
exists, so far as I know; and in it are
summed up, not without
scorn and refutation, those theories of
the origin of the works
and the habits of the builders, which do
not square with the
author's own. It is quite impossible
now, and probably always
will be, for us to understand the minute
causes and full explana-
tion of these numerous and peculiar
mounds and earthworks; for
the race or races which made them had no
literature, nor even an
alphabet, that first step in literature,
so that they could hand
down to posterity their own explanation,
as the Greeks and other
literary races have done. Mr. Fowke
makes it appear clearly
enough that there was no lack of
intellectual ability in our aborig-