Whoever built the mounds had a faculty not possessed by modern
Indians. Building instincts seem hereditary. The beaver and the musk
rat build a house. Other creatures to whom a dwelling might be
serviceable, such as the squirrel, obtain shelter in another way. And
races have their distinctive tendencies likewise. It never occurs to
an Indian to build a mound. From what has been already said as to the
fertile localities in which the mounds are found we are justified in
believing that their builders were agriculturists. Dr. Dawson in
Montreal by the use of the microscope detected grains of charred corn
in the remains of Hochelaga. I have examined a small quantity of the
dust taken from one of the shells found in the grand mound, with the
microscope, and though I am not perfectly certain, yet I believe there
are traces of some farinaceous substance to be seen. On skirting the
shores of the Lake of the Woods into which Rainy River runs, at the
present time, you are struck by the fact that there are no Canadian
farmers there, and likewise that there are no mounds to be seen, while
along the banks of Rainy River both the agriculturist is found
cultivating the soil and the mounds abound. It would seem to justify
us in concluding that the farmer and the mound builder avoided the one
locality because of its barren rocky character, and took to the other
because of its fertility. Moreover the continual occurrence of pottery
in the mounds shows that the mound builders were potters as well,
while none of the tribes inhabiting the district have any knowledge of
the art of pottery. The making of pottery is the occupation peculiarly
of a sedentary race, and hence of a race likely to be agriculturists.
As it requires the building faculty to originate the mounds, so it
requires the constructive faculty to make pottery. In constructive
ability our Indians are singularly deficient, just as it is with
greatest difficulty that they can be induced even on a small scale to
practice agriculture. It has been objected to this conclusion that the
Indians can make a canoe, which is a marvel in its way. But there is a
great difference in the two cases. In the canoe all the materials
remain the same. The approximation to a chemical process makes the
pottery manufacture a much more complicated matter. Indeed the Indian
in token of his surprise at his success in being even able to
construct a canoe, states in his tradition that it is the gift of the
Manitou. Furthermore the mound builder used metal tools, and was
probably a metal worker. It is true the copper implements mentioned,
as having been found were brought to Rainy and Red Rivers. I have,
however, pointed out the intimate connection judging by the line of
transport subsisting between Rainy River and Lake Superior, the mining
locality for copper. To sink a mine in the unyielding Huronian rock of
Lake Superior, with mallet and hammer and wedge and fire, take out the
native copper, work it into the desired tools, and then temper these
requires skill and adaptation unpossessed by the Indians. For
centuries we know that the Lake Superior mine in which are found tools
and timber constructions, have been buried, filled in for ten feet
with debris, and have rank vegetation and trees growing upon them. It
is certain that the Indian races, even when shown the example, cannot
when left alone follow the mining pursuit. Not only then by the
ethnological, and other data cited do we conclude that the mound
builders belong to a different race from the present Indians, but the
tradition of the Indians is to the same effect. Then