110 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



like those from Troy, a mere remnant, whose numbers were too small to erect works 

 of so much labor as those they left behind had required ; but after their strength 

 had been increased by a residence of some time in California, the passion for such 

 works returned with the ability to erect them." 



" If the opinion is adopted that the Aztecs were never in Ohio, but had pursued 

 the direct route from Asia (whence it is believed they all came) to California, along 

 the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and that the authors of the Ohio erections were from 

 the same continent and stock, the question may be asked : AVhere did the separa- 

 tion take place ? Was it before they left Asia, or after their arrival on the Ameri- 

 can continent?" 



If there are no similar works in the northeast of Asia, or on the route thence 

 towards the Ohio, he thinks that fact would go far to show that such works 

 originated in Ohio, and that those who erected them were the same people who 

 afterwards sojourned in California and finally settled in Mexico ; but if the opinion 

 is adopted, that these were distinct peoples or different branches of the same 

 Asiatic stock, it must be believed also that each fell into the practice of erecting 

 extensive works of the same form and materials, in a manner not known to be 

 practised by any other people, without any previous knowledge to guide them, and 

 without any intercourse. This he deems very improbable, and adds that: "If the 

 Aztecs were not the authors of the Ohio works, we can only account for the ulti- 

 mate fate of those who were, by supposing that they were entirely extirpated, 

 preferring, like the devoted Numantians, to be buried under the ruins of their own 

 walls to seeking safety by an ignominious flight." 



It will occur to the reader who is aware how wide an extent of country on this 

 side of the Mississippi the remains referred to by General Harrison are now known 

 to occupy, that any hypothesis respecting them must apply not merely to the valley 

 of the Ohio, but to a territory reaching to Lake Ontario, if not to the St. Law- 

 rence on the north, and to the Gulf of Mexico on the south; that, in the State of 

 New York, there are works of defence of a character as distinctly marked as those 

 on the Ohio, and that in Florida are mounds and inclosures as suggestive of reli- 

 gious ceremonials and barbaric pomp as those of Circleville and Newark. 



The main portion of General Harrison's discourse is devoted to a correction of 

 the prevalent opinion that the confederacy of "the Five Nations" had subjugated 

 the tribes which formed the Illinois confederacy, and occupied the region between 

 the Ohio and the Mississippi. 1 



* The argument in favor of the great antiquity of some of the earthworks at the west derived from 

 the nature and size of the forest trees that cover them, is well illustrated by General Harrison in the 

 following passage: " The process by which nature restores the forest to its original state, after being 

 once cleared, is extremely slow. In our rich lands, it is, indeed, soon covered again with timber, but 

 the character of the growth is entirely different, and continues so, through many generations of men. 

 In several places on the Ohio, particularly upon the farm which I occupy, clearings were made in the 

 first settlement, abandoned, and suffered to grow up. Some of them, now to be seen, of nearly fifty 

 years growth, have made so little progress towards attaining the appearance of the immediately conti- 

 guous forest as to induce any man of reflection to determine, that at least ten times fifty years would 

 be necessary before its complete assimilation could be effected. The sites of the ancient works on the 



