Natural History. 21 7 



has sufficed to purchase the importations; but this commercial 

 source is ready to cease from the great activity with which it has 

 been drawn upon : the natives, therefore, will be obliged to culti- 

 vate cotton, tobacco, sugar, and other similar products, which are 

 appropriate to their soil and climate. In June, 1827, the im- 

 portations rose to 220,000 piastres, and the exportations to 

 1 80,000. The money in circulation, in the island, is estimated at 

 200,000 piastres, which is not exported, because the sandal wood 

 offers greater advantages. From 100 to 120 large commercial 

 vessels have entered the port this year. — All. Zeitung, Nov., 1828. 

 Bull. Univ. F. xviii. 348. 



30. North America. Kentucky. Fortifications attributed to the 

 Indians. — The line of calcareous rocks, which extends to the west, 

 includes caverns of extraordinary depth. There is one named the 

 Cave of the Mammoth, in Warren County, which has been explored 

 by different persons for the length often miles, without their having 

 found the end of it. It is the bed of a subterranean river, the 

 water of which has ceased to flow. In the same district there are 

 hundreds of cavities of a similar kind of large dimensions, and 

 very curious : they are, in general, strongly impregnated with 

 nitre. All this country, and particularly the plains of the Ohio, 

 contain numerous defensive works, fortifications, terraces, which 

 are almost always met with near the ruins of a village, or hillocks 

 which have served for cemeteries. To judge by the appearance and 

 age of the trees which grow in these places, their formation must 

 be placed, at least, five or six hundred years back. It has, for a 

 long time, been sought to discover, in these remains, the traces of 

 another and more civilized people than the Indians of North 

 America; but the facial angle of the skulls obtained from the 

 neighbouring eminences, the shells, the amulets, the idols, the 

 cooking utensils, which have been obtained by digging ; lastly, the 

 well-known habit of the Indians, to celebrate, at the present day, 

 annual funeral solemnities on the places of sepulture ; and what 

 Ferdinand de Loto says respecting the way in which the natives of 

 Florida cast up entrenchments, and fortified themselves when their 

 territory was invaded, leaves no doubt as to the nature and origin 

 of these monuments. Only, it is evident that the Indians who 

 raised them formed a more united and numerous nation than the 

 tribes at present remaining; and that the valley of the Ohio was 

 the centre of their operations. The probability is, that, on becoming 

 stronger, they separated; and that, in their exterminating wars, 

 they weakened each other. The very extent of the forts and ceme- 

 teries support this conclusion. — Revue Encyc. Juillet. 



