282 ANTIQUITY OF THE KEMAINS. 



them is about six inches. These appearances, which are here 

 denominated 'ancient garden-beds/ indicate an earlier and 

 more perfect system of cultivation than that which now pre- 

 vails ; for the present Indians do not appear to possess the 

 ideas of taste and order necessary to enable them to arrange 

 objects in consecutive rows. Traces of this kind of cultivation, 

 though not very abundant, are found in several other parts of 

 the State (Wisconsin). The garden-beds are of various sizes, 

 covering, generally, from twenty to one hundred acres. Some 

 of them, are reported to embrace even three hundred acres. 

 As a general fact, they exist in the richest soil, as it is found 

 in the prairies and bun oak plains. In the latter case, trees 

 of the largest kind are scattered over them." 



In the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," it 

 is stated that no earthwork has ever been found on the first 

 or lowest terrace of any of the great rivers, and that " this 

 observation is confirmed by all who have given attention to 

 tin? subject." If true, this would indeed have indicated a 

 great antiquity, but in his subsequent work Mr. Squier informs 

 us that " they occur indiscriminately upon the first and upon 

 the superior terraces, as also upon the islands of the lakes and 

 rivers." Messrs. Squier and Davis* are of opinion that the 

 decayed state of the skeletons found in the mounds may enable 

 us to form " some approximate estimate of their remote anti- 

 quity," especially when we consider that the earth round them 

 " is wonderfully compact and dry, and that the conditions for 

 their preservation are exceedingly favourable." "In the bar- 

 rows of the ancient Britons," they add, " entire well-preserved 

 skeletons are found, although possessing an undoubted anti- 

 quity of at least eighteen hundred years." Dr. Wilson ( also 

 relies much on this fact, which, in his opinion, " furnishes a 

 stronger evidence of their great antiquity than any of the 

 proofs that have been derived either from the age of a subse- 



* 1. c. p. 168. t 1. c. vol. i. p. 359. 



