1 82 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING 



will receive, along with my obfervations. I proceed, 

 therefore, to the immediate bufmels of my communi- 

 cation. 



I propofe, in the firft place, to inquire by what people 

 thefe articles were made ; and, fecondly, for what pur- 

 pofes they were intended. 



FIRST. 



From the obvious antiquity of the tumulus in which 

 they were found ; from their general fabric, or appear- 

 ance, and from the materials out of which ibnie of them 

 are formed, it raufl, at firft fight, feem very impro- 

 bable, that thefe articles are the work of any people in 

 the fiate of fociety and improvement of the Indian or 

 favage nations of North- America, that are now known 

 to us. Thefe nations, although they are not, as has been 

 afferted, " the verieft ruins of mankind,"* and although 

 in the range of human improvement, and of human 

 glory, they adlually rank higher than many of the ancient 

 and modern nations of the old-world, it muft ftill be con- 

 fefled, are in a very humble ftage of fociety : humble, at 

 leaft, when contrafted with the point of improvement 

 in manners, in arts, and in fciences, to which many 

 nations have attained. But are there no proofs that the 

 rude nations of America have fallen from a more refpec- 

 table form of fociety than that in which we now contem- 

 plate them ? It appears to me that there are. Thefe 

 proofs are even numerous. Some of them are monu- 

 ments whofe magnitude or materials (hall fecure to them 



* " Mr. Hooker fays, they are the verieft ruins of mankind upon the 

 face of the earih." See Governor Hutchinfon's Hiftory of Maffachufetts, 

 Vol. I. p. 414. Salem: 1795. 



an 



