Miscellaneous Facts and Obser'aations. 187 



ARCHAEOLOGIA. 



42. The artificial works, best known by the name of 

 Fortifications, are daily discovered, in great num- 

 bers, and many of them of vast extent, in various parts 

 of the United. States, particularly in the fertile countries 

 adjacent to the rivers Ohio and Missisippi, and their 

 branches. In some of the tumuli, or barrows, con- 

 nected with these works, copper implements, of different 

 kinds, have been found. So that there can be no 

 doubt that the people who formed, or who possessed, 

 these works, were acquainted with the use of copper. 

 But how far this metal was in general use among tliem, 

 we are not yet prepared to determine. This point, 

 however, may be determined, at some future period. 



Bishop Madison's ingenious speculations concerning 

 the design of the works alluded to*, have induced some 

 persons to suppose, that they were never intended to 

 serve the purposes of fortifications. But for whatever 

 purposes they were used, it is certain, that these works 

 could never have been constructed by a people in the 

 state of society in which the Europeans found the In- 

 dian inhabitants of the tracts of country in which the 

 supposed fortifications are so abundantly distributed : 

 and we seem to proceed with entire safety in asserting, 

 that they must have been constructed by tribes, or na- 

 tions, who were extremely numerous. 



* A Letter on the supposed Fortifications of the Western Coun- 

 try, from Bishop Madison, of Virginia, to Dr. Barton. See 

 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. vi. 

 Part J. No. 2G. 



