334 NORTH AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY. 



is about six inches. These appearances, which are here denominated 'ancient 

 garden-beds,' indicate an earlier and more perfect system of cultivation than that 

 which now prevails ; for the present Indians do not appear to possess the ideas 

 of taste and order necessary to enable them to arrange objects in consecvitive 

 rows. Traces of this kind of cultivation, though not very abundant, are found 

 in several other parts of the State." (Wisconsin.) 



Date. — In the ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley it is stated that 

 no earthwork has ever been found on the first or lowest terrace of any of the 

 great rivers, and that "this observation is confirmed by all who have given 

 attention to the subject." If true, this would, indeed, have indicated a great 

 antiquity, but in his subsequent woi*k Mr. Squier informs us that " they occur 

 indiscrimiuately upon the first and upon the superior terraces, as also upon the 

 islands of the lakes and rivers." Messrs. Squier and Davis* are of opinion that 

 the decayed state of the skeletons found in the mounds may enable us to form 

 "some approximate estimate of their remote antiquity," especially when we con- 

 sider that the earth around them "is wonderfully compact and dry, and that the 

 conditions for their preservation are exceedingly favorable." "In the barrows 

 of the Ancient Britons," they add, "entire well-preserved skeletons are found, 

 although possessing an undoubted antiquity of at least eighteen himdred years." 

 Dr. Wilsont also attributes much importance to this argument, which, in his 

 opinion, "furnisljes a stronger evidence of their great antiquity than any of the 

 proofs that have been derived either from the age of a subsequent forest growth, 

 or the changes wrought on the river terraces where they most abound." This 

 argument, if it proves anything, certainly requires a much longer time than 

 eighteen hundred years, and carries us back, therefore, far beyond any antiquity 

 indicated by the forests. These, nevertheless, have also a tale to tell. Thus 

 Captain Peckf observed near the Ontonagon river, and at a depth of twenty- 

 five feet, some stone mauls and other implements in contact with a vein of copper. 

 Above these was the fallen trunk of a large cedar, aiid " over all grew a hem- 

 lock tree, the roots of which spread entirely above the fallen tree " * * * 

 and indicated, in his estimation, a growth of not less than three centuries, to 

 which must then be added the age of the cedar, which indicates a still "longer 

 succession of centuries, subsequent to that protracted period diuing which the 

 deserted trench was slowly filled up with accumulations of many winters." 



The late President Harrison, in an address to the Historical Society of Ohio, 

 made some very philosophical remarks on this subject, which are quoted by Messrs. 

 Squier and Davis. § "The process," he says, "by which nature restores the 

 forest to its original state, after being once cleared, is extremely sIoav. The rich 

 lands of the west are, indeed, soon covered again, but the character of the growth 

 is entirely different, and continues so for a long period. In several places upon 

 the Ohio, and upon the farm which I occupy, clearings were made in the first 

 settlement of the country, and subsequently abandoned and suffered to grow up. 

 Somt^ of these new forests are now sure of fifty years' growth, but they have 

 made so little progress towards attaining the appearance of the immediately con- 

 tiguous fin-est as to induce any man of reflection to determine that at least ten 

 times fifty years must elapse before their complete assimilation can be effected. 

 We find in the ancient works all that variety of trees which give stich unrivalled 

 beauty to our forests in natural proportions. The first growth on the same 

 kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to nature, on the contrary, is 

 nearly homogeneous, often stinted to one or two, at most three kinds of timber. 

 If the ground has been cultivated, the yellow locust will thickly spring up ; if 

 not cultivated, the black and white walntit will be the prevailing growth. * * 



* * * Of what immense age. then, must be the works so often referred 



« L. c, p. 168. + L. c, vol.i, p. 359. 



\ WilLson, c, vol. i, p. 256. § L. c, p. 306. 



