286 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
Office at Washington, and a piece weighing 1630 pounds is almost in 
view from the window at which I am writing, in the door-yard of my 
friend Mr. Forrest Shepard, an active geological explorer; both these 
grand pieces with native silver eens to them, are from the Lake 
Superior Copper Region. ] 
The telegraphic mounds (No. 3) Sabidedi in ranges at convenient 
distances for many leagues ; so that fires kindled upon them would give 
early and effectual notice of the approach of an enemy, as I remember 
to have seen in England, in August, 1805, when Napoleon’s invasios 
was expected. 
The enclosures serving as regular works for defense, were furnished 
with parapets, ditches, towers at the angles, and covered ways especial- 
‘ly to supplies of water near rivers.. These works appear, often, to have 
included a dense population in villages; and it is obvious that the hun- — _ 
dreds of earth structures found in the valley of the Scioto, and the 
thousands, many thousands, in Ohio and other states, (not a few of 
which I have seen in Ohio, Jinois and Missouri,) necessarily implied a 
considerable population: and of course it was agricultural, at least in 
part, as they could not in such numbers subsist upon the chase alone; 
and there must have been an energetic government to coerce, or pow- 
erful mental influence to induce, so much labor. ‘The present Indians 
do not submit to such toils, and have only very humble arts. They 
have however often buried their dead in the ancient mounds; but it is 
easy to distinguish these more modern deposits. 
The ancient mounds were always erected in plains and valleys of 
fertile land, and on alluvial river deposits ; and in some cases there are 
river terraces at lower elevations than those on which the mounds are 
found, thus perhaps indicating their high antiquity. 
These explorations by Messrs. Squier and Davis differ trode all pre- 
ceding ones, not only by their number, but by the thorough manner i? 
which the researches are made, an entire section of the mound having 
been ‘cut from top to bottom, thus disclosing its contents. They have 
at Chillicothe, six thousand specimens which have been taken from the 
mounds, a selection of which will be made, to illustrate a work on this. 
branch of archeology which is now in the course of preparation. _ 
Mr. Squier has presented his subject in some of the principal north- 
ern cities of the U. S., where it has excited much interest; and both@ 
learned individual ond: a learned society have volunteered the sums re 
‘quisite for its publication. The races that constructed these works were 
ead the precursors of the Mexicans and Peruvians, and may have 
- their to move farther south, or been driver 
