152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 176 



was ever accomplished. As sources of authentic history these at- 

 tempts sometimes approach historical fiction, and are not unlike the 

 sometimes inappropriate or inaccurate creations of the m.otion picture 

 studio, which survive only on film. 



These facts suggest that a comprehensive review of surviving docu- 

 mentary evidence (including the pictorial) on the many trading 

 posts would be a first step toward accuracy in understanding them. 

 What, for example, was their customary orientation — if, indeed, 

 they were customarily oriented with compass points? Wliat was 

 their usual size or sizes? Were there more than a few that had a 

 plan other than quadrilateral, such as the three-sided Fort Mandan 

 (comparable despite its essentially military function) or the irregular 

 polygonal Fort Osage (which appears to have been carefully fitted 

 to the peculiar topography of its site) ? Where specializations in the 

 outer lines of the palisades or stockade were present, such as block- 

 houses and gatehouses, did these features conform to designs familiar 

 on some contemporary pictures and more recent artistic conceptions ? 



What was the customary location within these enclosures for the 

 housing and feeding of personnel, for storage and trade, and for the 

 accommodation of animals, or was there, in fact, little pattern in the 

 plans of such posts? Not least in importance would be a review of 

 construction methods employed (where these could be determined), 

 with attention to orthodox techniques and methods in the history of 

 carpentry and masonry. Finally, the student of such topics would 

 wish to know something of the efficiency and suitability of the con- 

 structions, in view of the purposes for which they were designed. 

 Such questions — for which there are, ai)parently, no ready answers — 

 suggest that here are topics for legitimate historical inquiry, employ- 

 ing such documentation as can be found, into "lost" American archi- 

 tectural history. Once such data have been collected and analyzed, 

 further additions to knowledge could undoubtedly be made from time 

 to time from actual site excavations, in cases in which the sites can be 

 precisely identified. 



It is probable that an outline of such lost architectural history would 

 be an addition to knowledge not unworthy of attention, in view of the 

 historic role of the commercial trading post in the first period of ex- 

 ploitation of the natural resources of the West. In the related sphere 

 of the history of the intermingling of peoples of differing cultural 

 origins — American Indian groups and alien Whites, the latter them- 

 selves of various national and cultural affiliations — further knowledge 

 of the setting in which some of the initial culture contacts occurred 

 would seem to be an important scholarly endeavor. It is sometimes 

 said that the historian is more often concerned with the person or 

 persons, and the event or events, than with the place or places in which 

 historic events have occurred, and it seems appropriate here to draw 



