ANTIQUITIES OF NEW YORK. 123 



descriptions and delineations of other writers ; but these chiefly in manuscript, and 

 therefore not generally known to the public. 



In some respects the earthworks of the South are comparatively of minor in- 

 terest, because they are less varied in form and less anomalous in character than 

 those of the middle region, and because they are to a considerable extent explained 

 by the usages of the people existing when Europeans entered the country. On the 

 other hand, their numbers, their magnitude, and the necessary labor of their 

 execution, render them equally objects of surprise and curiosity, if they lack, in 

 any degree, the bewildering attraction of vagueness and mystery. 



In closing their remarks upon what they have investigated and described, these 

 gentlemen wisely refrain from drawing many general conclusions. They regard 

 the antiquity of the ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley as manifested by 

 their position beyond the latest formed terraces of the river banks, by the exceed- 

 ingly decayed state of the skeletons in the mounds, and by the age of the trees 

 upon them that are in no way distinguishable from the primitive forests. They 

 think it clear that the population must have been numerous, and essentially homo- 

 geneous in customs, habits, religion, and government ; that as their remains are 

 almost entirely confined to fertile valleys, or productive alluvions bordering on 

 lakes and streams, that circumstance, in connection with their nature and extent, 

 necessarily implies the derivation of sustenance from agriculture, involving also 

 such particulars of manners and customs as are incident to stationary and agricul- 

 tural life ; and they venture to suggest that the facts collected point to a connec- 

 tion, more or less intimate, between the race of the mounds and the semi-civilized 

 nations of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. 



While Messrs. Squier and Davis were completing their general survey of the 

 antiquities of the United States, Mr. Schoolcraft published his " Notes on the 

 Iroquois." 1 



Next to the valley of the Ohio, no other northern section of the Union presents 

 so great a number and variety of aboriginal remains as the State of New York ; 

 and no other native race has been found to possess so much of warlike energy, 

 capacity of organization for combined effort, and profound national policy, as the 

 Iroquois. Their celebrated confederacy, first of five, then of six nations, their 

 systematic plans of conquest, their sagacious management of the fruits of victory, 

 their high-toned manliness of character, their eloquence, their decision and tenacity 

 of purpose, have given a peculiar interest to their history. How far the evidences 

 of former conflicts — the fortified enclosures, and defensive parapets, so frequent in 

 western and northwestern New York, and extending even to more interior locali- 

 ties — are to be explained by their warlike and aggressive habits, has always been 

 a matter of uncertainty and debate. Reference has already been made to inquiries 

 that have, from time to time, been directed, sometimes by eminent citizens of the 

 State, towards the materials of archaeological information existing within its limits. 



Mr. Schoolcraft was at pains to collect the statistics of the ancient and present 



1 Notes on the Iroquois ; or Contributions to American History, Antiquities, and General Eth- 

 nology. By Henry R. Schoolcraft, Albany, 1847. 



