PREFACE 



The fact of the existence, within the valley of the Mississippi river and its 

 tributaries, of many ancient monuments of human labor and skill, seems to have 

 escaped the notice of the adventurers who first made known to the world the 

 extent and fertility of that vast region. Except some incidental allusions by La 

 Vega, and the Portuguese chronicler of De Soto's unfortunate expedition, to 

 structures bearing some analogy to those of the West, (and which seem to have 

 been occupied, if they wfere r.ot built, by the Indians of Florida,) we find no 

 mention made of these monuments by any of the earlier explorers. No sooner, 

 however, had trade been opened with the Indians beyond the Alleghanies, and the 

 valley of the Mississippi begun to attract the attention of the rival nations that 

 laid claim to this division of the continent, than the less prominent features of the 

 country became subjects of observation and remark. Then, for the first time, we 

 find these ancient monuments distinctly alluded to. It was not however until 

 some time afterwards, when settlements had been established at various prominent 

 points within the valley, and t' 3 tide of emigration began to flow thitherward, that 

 any special attention was directed to them. Carver in 1776, and Hearte and 

 others in 1791, were among the earliest of these observers at the North. Their 

 accounts, however, served scarcely to make known the existence of these remains, 

 and failed to convey any clear idea of their extent or character. But as the 

 country became better known and more densely populated, notices of their exist- 

 ence became more numerous, and some detailed accounts of particular groups 

 were presented to the world, in the form of incidental notices in books of travel 

 and local gazetteers, or in contributions to the pages of periodicals, and to the 

 transactions of learned societies. Harris, in his " Tour into the Territory north- 

 west of the Ohio,'''' published in 1805, noticed at considerable length the ancient 

 remains at Marietta on the Ohio river; and H. H. Brackexridge, one of the 

 most accurate of the early explorers of the West, in his " Views of Louisiana" 

 published in 1814, and in a paper in the first volume of the new series of the 

 Transactions of the " American Philosophical Society," presented accounts of 



