FIRST OBSERVATIONS. 19 



and well-informed men who first visited the interior parts of the present United 

 States, is somewhat singular, in view of the fact that so much has .-ince been brought 

 to light in the very paths on which they trod. 1 



We therefore advance to the period when investigations may be said to have 

 commenced; and it is proposed to refer, in chronological order, to the observations 

 and opinions of which the antiquities of the United States have been the subject, 

 since they were noticed as such, and regarded as objects, not of curiosity merely, 

 but of mystery and wonder. 



It is not to be expected that every allusion which may have been made by 

 travellers or others to the existence of such remains will be included in these 

 references ; but it is hoped to embrace those which are of most importance, and 

 which represent the nature and degree of knowledge possessed at the time. 



In the years 1748. 1749, and ] 750, Peter Kalm, Professor of Economy in the 

 University of Abo, in Swedish Finland, made a tour of scientific observation in this 

 country, and was careful to record everything that seemed to him worthy of 

 attention. 2 After speaking of the entire absence of ruins or evidences of ancient 

 habitations that give interest to travels in other countries, he says : " There have, 

 however, been found a few marks of antiquity, from which it may be inferred that 

 North America was formerly inhabited by a nation more versed in science and more 

 civilized than that which the Europeans found here on their arrival; or that a great 

 military expedition was undertaken to this continent from those known parts of the 

 world." He then states that, some years before he came into Canada, the Governor- 

 General sent M. de Verandrier, with a number of people, across North America to 

 the South sea. From Montreal they went as due west as the lakes, rivers, and 

 mountains would permit. In a far country, beyond many nations, they met with 

 large tracts free from wood, many of which were everywhere covered with furrows, 

 as if they had formerly been ploughed and sown. " When," says Kalm, " they 

 came far to the west, where, to the best of their knowledge, no Frenchman or Eu- 

 ropean had ever been, they found in one place in the woods, and again on a large 

 plain, great pillars of stone leaning upon each other. The pillars consisted of one 

 single stone each, and the Frenchmen could not suppose that they had been erected 

 by human hands. At last they met with a large stone, 



or pillar, in which a smaller stone was fixed that was covered on both sides with 

 unknown characters. This stone, which was about a French foot in length, and 



1 Brackenridge, in his "Views of Louisiana," remarks, in relation to the remains of supposed forti- 

 fications there: "The French writers, who most probably observed them, do not speak of them; a 

 proof that they had no doubt as to their origin, nor thought of attributing them to any other than the 

 natives of the country." p. 183. 



2 The expenses of Professor Kalm's scientific tour were defrayed in part by contributions from the 

 universities of Sweden, and in part by the king. One of the points to which his curiosity was directed 

 he states to be, "whether any other nation possessed America before the present Indian inhabitants 

 came into it ; or whether any other nations visited this part of the globe before Columbus discovered 

 it." The question of discoveries and settlements in the United States by the Northmen had not then 

 been agitated. 



