118 ARCHEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the community at large for any correct conception of the nature of the marvels 

 that might be revealed to an explorer. The time had certainly arrived when new 

 efforts were called for to determine with accuracy the nature and extent of those 

 vestiges of a higher social condition than had been transmitted to later races; and, 

 happily, the men and the means were provided for the accomplishment of the object. 

 No national questions of Science were capable of creating equal interest abroad, or 

 were likely to excite more general attention at home. A more active spirit of 

 inquiry upon all points connected with the primeval history of the western hemi- 

 sphere, has evidently been promoted by the publication of the work of Messrs. 

 Squier and Davis, and more correct ideas have in consequence been attained. 



An analysis of this work in detail will not be attempted ; but an effort will bo 

 made to gather from it the prominent impressions that a new and wider survey of 

 these remains produced, after the lapse of twenty-five years from the time when 

 they were first collectively examined and illustrated. 



The authors satisfied themselves that aboriginal monuments in the United States 

 are diffused over a vast extent of country; that they are found on the sources of 

 the Alleghany river, and 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 Nebraska, on the west. They found 

 no account of their occurrence above the Great Lakes. They refer to Lewis and 

 Clarke as reporting their existence on the Missouri, one thousand miles above its 

 junction with the Mississippi, and state that they have been observed on the 

 Kansas and Platte, and other remote western rivers. They are represented as 

 being found all over the intermediate country, and through the valley of the Mis- 

 sissippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and as lining the shores of the Gulf from Texas to 

 Florida, extending, in diminished numbers, into South Carolina. They are declared 

 to exist in great numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas ; 

 and to be found, in less numbers, in the western portions of New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina; as also in Michigan, Iowa, and 

 the Mexican Territory beyond the Rio Grande del Norte. In all these various 

 regions they are said to be mainly confined to the neighborhood of the principal 

 streams, and when occurring far from them to be of small size. 



In this wide extent of country, three geographical divisions were apparent to 

 the authors as possessing remains peculiar to themselves, although certain general 

 points of resemblance pervaded them all. Thus in the region .bordering the Upper 

 Lakes, particularly in Wisconsin, the earth-works were in emblematical forms, 

 rudely representing animals and other effigies. In the great section watered by 

 the Ohio and its tributaries, very few such structures were to be seen; but fortified 

 elevations, and large enclosures of symmetrical shape abounded ; the latter occup3- 

 ing the river bottoms, and appearing from their formal arrangement, their suites of 

 mounds, and their graded avenues, adapted rather to religious ceremonials than to 

 purposes of habitation or protection. Nearer the Gulf of Mexico, the fortifications, 

 the enclosures, and the conical tumuli, became more rare ; and truncated pyra- 

 midal structures of less height than the mounds of the north, but of greater hori- 



