ANCIENT MONUBIENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



The ancient monuments of the Western United States consist, for the most 

 part, of elevations and embankments of earth and stone, erected with great labor 

 and manifest design. In connection with these, more or less intimate, are fovmd 

 various minor relics of art, consisting of ornaments and implements of many kinds, 

 some of them composed of metal, but most of stone. 



These remains are spread over a vast extent of country. They are found on the 

 sources of the Alleghany, in the western part of the State of New- York, on the 

 east ; and extend thence westwardly along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and 

 through Michigan and Wisconsin, to Iowa and the Nebraska territory, on the 

 west.* We have no record of their occurrence above the great lakes. Carver 

 mentions some on the shores of Lake Pepin, and some are said to occur near Lake 

 Travers, under the 46th parallel of latitude. Lewis and Clarke saw them on the 

 Missouri river, one thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi ; and 

 they have been observed on the Kanzas and Platte, and on other remote western 

 rivers. They are found all over the intermediate country, and spread over the 

 valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. They line the shores of the 

 Gulf from Texas to Florida, and extend, in diminished numbers, into South Caro- 

 lina. They occur in great numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, 

 Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, 

 and Texas. They are found, in less numbers, in the western portions of New- 

 York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina ; as also in Michigan, 

 Iowa, and in the Mexican territory beyond the Rio Grande del Norte. In short, 



* Some ancient works, probably belonging to tlie same system witli tliosc of tlie Mississippi vallej', 

 and erected by the same people, occur upon the Susquehanna river, as far down as the Valley of Wyo- 

 ming, in Pennsylvania. The mound-builders seem to have skirted the southern border of Lake Erie, and 

 spread themselves, in diminished numbers, over the western part of the State of New- York, along the shores 

 of Lake Ontario to the St. La\vi-ence river. They penetrated into the interior, eastward, as far as the 

 county of Onondaga, where some slight vestiges of their works still exist. These seem to have been tlieir 

 limits at the north-east, 



