p. 5

1071

-1231-
1864.

Milwaukee April 5th, 1864.

Rev. Wm Greenwell,

N.Bailey Durham Eng.

Dear Sir,-

It will afford me much satisfaction to aid you in your interesting and important investigations respecting the ancient inhabitants of the north of England. They seem to have many habits resembling those of the aborigines of this continent, habits indeed which appear to have been characteristic of what the Danish archaeologists call the primary or stone age in various countries.

Most of the questions asked in your favor of March 19th you will find answered, so far as I am able to answer them, in my memoir on the Antiquities of Wisconsin published in 1855 by the Smithsonian Institution, a copy of which Prof. Henry will send you.

There can be no reasonable doubt but that the mound builders of America were the ancestors of, and belonged to the same race of men as the present Indian tribes.

The examination of the skulls by the late Dr. Morton sufficiently settled this question.

One very essential difference between our archaeology and yours is that we have no secondary or tertiary ages--no ages of bronze or iron--the stone age continued until the time of European intercourse, and indeed (in some obscure tribes in California) down to our own day. I have in my collection numerous arrows made of reeds &c. pointed with flint delicately and beautifully worked as in ancient times. Though these were made in California and are in common use there.

The use of copper by the mound builders is accounted for by the existence not only of immense masses of native copper on