Facts

The American Mound Builders – Evidence of Book of Mormon People

In North American they were one people living under similar laws, religion, and institutions. The monuments left imply a wide spread religious system under a powerful priesthood. The Mound-builders were an agricultural people. Tribes that live by hunting never build extensive public works. The works discussed here were built by a race that lived long in the land. It seems unlikely that the results attained could have been accomplished in less than four or five centuries and could extend to thousands of years.

Their civilization as recorded by the relics shows they had knowledge of agriculture, the art of fortification, mathematical knowledge by the laying-out of perfect circles and accurate angles. They use exact squares, each measuring one thousand and eighty feet side which is a coincidence which could not possibly be accidental. Noted also in dimensions are the square enclosures, five or six of these having been found at long distance from each other, which measured exactly ten hundred and eighty feet square.

Embankments of earth or stone, and ditches forming enclosures, which are subdivided into fortifications, sacred enclosures, or connected with religious rites.

If their temples were standing on their pyramids, they would compare with those of Mexico and Central America and imply a likeness of religious ideas in the builders.

The mound form is common in American known as the Mound-builders. It extends over a territory bounded:

• On the north by the great lakes
• On the east by western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the north
• South extending to the Atlantic coast and including Florida, Georgia, and part of South Carolina; on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, including Texas
• On the west by an indefinite line extending from the head of Lake Superior through the states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Indian Territory and some on the upper Missouri.

There are also found low embankments of earth which form enclosures of some naturally strong position. Such embankments are always on hills, lake or river terraces, or to their high places. Their strong natural position leaves no doubt of their original design as fortifications, places of refuges and of protection against enemies.

The practice of throwing up an embankment at the foot of palisades was a natural one.

The total number of mounds in the state of Ohio is estimated at ten thousand, while the enclosures were at least fifteen hundred.

Accordingly as they are found on the level plain or on hill tops, enclosures are divided into fortifications and sacred enclosures. The summit of the hill is two hundred and fifty feet above the river; the enclosing wall is of earth and stones, five feet high, thirty-five feet thick at the base and unaccompanied by a ditch.

In size the temple-mounds vary from a height of five feet and a diameter of forty feet to ninety feet in altitude and a base area of eight acres. The largest mound of this is at Illinois. Its base measures seven hundred by five hundred feet. The height is ninety feet. On one end above mid-height is a terrace platform from one hundred and sixty and three hundred and fifty feet, and the summit area is two hundred by four hundred and fifty fee, or nearly two acres.

At Marietta, Ohio, are four mounds like that shown in the photo, within a square enclosure. There is a remarkable temple-mound, near Springfield, Missouri, on a hill three hundred feet high. It is of earth and stones, sixty two feet high, five hundred feet in diameter at the base and one hundred and thirty at the summit. A ditch, two hundred feet wide and five feet deep.

Works of the Mound-builders; Bancroft and Appleton 1875

Times and Seasons: Ancient Ruins
Every day adds fresh testimony to the already accumulated evidence on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. At the time that book was translated, there was very little known about ruined cities and dilapidated buildings. The general presumption was that no people possessing more intelligence than our present race of Indians had ever inhabited this continent; and the accounts given in the Book of Mormon concerning large cities and civilized people having inhabited this land were generally disbelieved and pronounced a humbug.