150 INTRODUCTION. 



Stances of the state. The history of the races which inhabited the American 

 continent previously to the planting of the European colonies, is a vast field im- 

 perfectly explored. Ancient fortifications erected anterior to the discovery of 

 America, have been found in all parts of the state. De Witt Clinton, after 

 personal examination, described the ruins of fortifications in Pompey, Onondaga 

 county. In several parts of that town, there are remains of ancient populous 

 settlements. The site of the ruins is on the high ground which divides the 

 waters which flow into Chesapeake bay, from those which seek the ocean 

 through the gulf of St. Lawrence ; and the formations between this ridge and 

 the shore of Lake Ontario indicate an abrasion of rocks, and a recession of the 

 waters by which the valley has been exposed. The ruins are similar to those 

 found in the interior of the continent ; from an examination of which our anti- 

 quarians have, with great unanimity, deduced the opinion that a vast population, 

 many ages since, existed on the continent, having large towns, possessing military 

 defences, and pursuing agi-iculture, and more advanced in civilization than the 

 aboriginal nations which have inhabited the same country since the European 

 discovery. Many interesting relics found in such ruins have been preserved in 

 the Albany Institute, especially utensils made of pottery. There is another class 

 of ruins which furnish traces of visits by Europeans, of which there is no histo- 

 rical account. The Indians found in the settlement of the colony, have no 

 reliable tradition concerning either of these descriptions of ruins. A few rude 

 characters etched upon the rocks are all the enduring hieroglyphics, found in the 

 northern portion of the continent east of the Hudson ; and these are unintelligible, 

 although the learned and ingenious Schoolcraft supposes that he has discovered 

 a key to unlock the mystery. Monuments every where remain, but they bear 

 no records of the eloquent, the wise and the brave, who may have flourished in 

 a long lapse of ages. Even the origin of the present aboriginal races is involved 

 in mystery, and the curious and learned are equally divided on the question, 

 whether the ancestors of these races were drifted upon the southern division of 

 the continent, from the islands of the South Sea, or 'whether they were of 



