AN ACCOUNT
OF
ANCIENT REMAINS
ON THIS CONTINENT.
Mounds and tumuli covering human relics, have been traced from Wales across the continent, through Russia and Tartary. I have been able to find no account of these works on the western side of the Rocky mountains, or in the direction of Behring's Straits; but, from the limits of Ouiskonsin, they constantly increase in number and extent.[1]
On the south side of Ontario, one of these remains, not far from Black river, is, I am informed, the farthest that has been discovered in a northeastern direction. One on the Chenango river, at Oxford, is the farthest south on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, of undoubted and untraditional antiquity.
In travelling westwardly toward Lake Erie, some are to be found in Genessce County, but they are scarce and small until we arrive at Cattaraugus Creek, where, according to the late Governor Clinton, a chain of forts commences, extending southwardly upward of fifty miles, at a distance from each other of not more than four or five.
South of these again, extensive works were discovered at Circleville, at Chillicothe, at the mouth of the Scioto and Muskingum, at Cincinnati, at St. Louis, and at numerous points along the Valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi.
Among these tumuli and fortifications, a variety of interesting relics have been found by their explorers. Vessels of earthenware, utensils of copper, painted pottery, vases of curious form, copper beads, and circular plates of the same material, carvings in stone, silver and gold ornaments; and, at Natchez and near Nashville, idols of stone, which are not unlike those heretofore represented in my letters as existing in Mexico. Drawings of these idols are given in the Archæologia Americana, at pages 211 and 215 of the first volume.
- ↑ Most interesting accounts, accompanied by plates, of the ancient remains in Ouiskonala Territory, and the great war path from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, are to be found in the January number of Silliman's Journal for 1853, and also in the 34th volume of that valuable work.
