e Life and Writings of 



ARCH/EOLOGIC WORK. 



During the period of Lexington residence Rafinesque 

 devoted much attention to the mounds and other evi 

 dences of prehistoric peoples in the Ohio Valley. About 

 Lexington, in Fayette County, are several examples of 

 mounds, to the study of which he gave much time. It 

 is not known that the modern methods of careful 

 exploitation were employed by him; probably he simply 

 surveyed and located the mounds he discovered. His 

 attention had been directed to these interesting and re 

 markable earthworks during a journey in Ohio, where 

 for the first time he saw them. From that time on, 

 wherever he went, his close attention was directed to 

 these objects. In the appendix to his work on the 

 &quot;Ancient Monuments of Kentucky&quot;, published in Mar 

 shall s History, is an enumeration of the sites of an 

 cient towns and prehistoric monuments and similar 

 works. In a summary, at the end of the enumeration, 

 Rafinesque states that he had already, in North America, 

 ascertained five hundred and forty-one sites of towns, 

 of which one hundred and forty-eight were in Ken 

 tucky. In the same summary he says that before his 

 time only twenty-five sites and one hundred monuments 



