the skeletons may be ascribed.* Within the same caves many other miscellaneous articles have been found, far below the surface, such as bows and arrows, earthenware, fishing nets, cloths, mats, cane baskets, beads, wooden cups, moccasons of bark, various utensils and relics indicative of the character of the deceased with whom they were buried; and, more singular still, the bones of the peccari or Mexican hog, an animal not indigenous to the United States, but belonging to the more southern climates. In general, these caves have been great cemeteries of the dead, for bodies are being continually disinterred from the earth within them, and more than a hundred human skulls have been counted in one cave, within a space twenty feet square.†

of

With regard to the color of the hair observed upon these bodies, it has been unreasonably considered, as sustaining the theory of the European origin of the ancient inhabitants of the west. The probabilities are, however, that its original hue was black, and that the change to its present appearance is owing to the chemical action of the saltpetrous earth in which the bodies were deposited. In corroboration of this view, some human remains found in Peruvian sepulchres may be referred to: several of these tombs examined in 1790, by the Spaniards, contained bodies in an entire condition, but withered and dried, and the hair of a red color. From their position and other accompanying circumstances, they were undoubtedly the re

* Archæologia Americana, vol. i. p. 304.

† Silliman's Journal, vol. i. p. 622.

A similar phenomenon has sometimes been observed in the appearance of the Egyptian mummies, the hair having been changed in color, from black to red.- Wilkinson's Egypt, p. 370.

mains of the Peruvian Indians, the change in the hair having probably arisen from the character of the soil, it being strongly impregnated with saline matter.*

The graves of the ancient inhabitants appear usually in the vicinity of the earthen remains and mounds, and when they are not within tumuli, frequently consist of a rude species of stone coffin, in which the deceased has been interred in a sitting posture. Such are the graves in Missouri, upon the Merrimack river, concerning which so much speculation has been indulged.† They were a short distance from several mounds, and a ruined earthen rampart. The coffins were formed of six pieces of flat stone, were from twenty-three to fifty inches in length, and situated upon small hillocks. The skeletons were mostly decayed, or in such fragments as to render it somewhat difficult to ascertain their size and position. In one instance, however, the leg bones were found lying parallel with the thigh, a circumstance explaining the diminutive size of the graves. Similar graves have been opened and examined, in Tennessee, and in other parts of the western country,‡ all indicating that the body has not been disposed lengthwise, but placed with the legs drawn together close to the body, so as to occupy a very small compass. Nothing further need be said in relation to the idea of the Lilliputian stature of the ancient inhabitants. Other tombs have disclosed bones, which, from their size, have suggested the belief in a former race of giants-an opinion equally unfounded with the one just referred to, which it so strongly contradicts.§

Numerous other articles have been discovered in the prose

*MS. Travels.

† Beck's Gazetteer, p. 274. Scientific Tracts, vol. iii. p. 157. § Beck's Gazetteer, p. 261.

cution of antiquarian researches in the regions of the west, but they afford no additional light concerning the state of the arts, or the customs, of those extinct nations from whom they have

proceeded.

CHAPTER III.

ANCIENT REMAINS IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE second class of Antiquities in the United States, proceeding from the same ancient people, exhibits, in an extended view, decisive proof of the immense numbers and advanced social condition of their authors. It comprehends the Mural Remains, or enclosures-formed by earthen embankments and trenches; which appear most numerously in the district bordering upon the Mississippi and its branches, and in the vicinity of the great lakes and their tributaries; though they may be found stretching at intervals from New-York to Florida, and from the Territory west of the Mississippi to the Alleghanies. A detail of some of the most remarkable ruins of this character, though exposed to a charge of tediousness, is highly important in developing a just and correct idea of the power and population of the former inhabitants of our country.

The first work of this description meriting attention in the state of New-York, is one formerly existing on the Genessee river, which enclosed an area of about six acres. It was surrounded on three sides by a ditch running in a circular direction, which was intersected by six entrances; on the other quarter a high bank formed a natural defence, through which a covered way led down to a neighboring stream. At a short distance to the south were similar works defended by a deeper fosse, and

disposed upon a more eminent and inaccessible situation, combining artificial with natural advantages.*

66

On the river Tonawandé there was a place distinguished in the Seneca tongue by a word signifying "the double fortified town," or a town with a fort at each end." These forts were separated by an interval of two miles; the one containing about four, and the other eight acres of land. The ditch encompassing a part of the former was six feet deep,-a stream and a high bank, bisected by a covered way to the water, defending the remaining portion. The northern fortification was on elevated ground, and in proximity to it was a sepulchral mound, six feet in height, twenty-five feet in diameter, and containing bones, which appeared projecting in many places from its surface. The remains of another fortified town, containing more than five hundred acres, formerly existed in Pompey, Onondaga county three circular or elliptical forts, disposed in a triangle, and distant from each other about eight miles, were its outworks. At Camillus, in the same county, there were a few years since two elliptical forts, with gates, and with covered ways to the adjacent water. Another formerly stood upon the Seneca river, which was in the form of a parallelogram, two hundred and twenty yards in length, and fifty-five in breadth, with gates opening on either side, towards the river, and to the country. In its vicinity was a mound or elevation in the shape of a crescent, with its extremities turned towards the fort. At least a hundred of these fortifications have been perceived in this state, stretching from the Delaware, through the region

* Kirkland's MSS., cited in Yates and Moulton's Hist. of NewYork, vol. i. p. 16.

† Clinton's Memoir.

New-York Magazine, 1792.