Bringier on the Region of the Mississippi, ^c. 3T 



ed down leaves a mound, such as a traveller is never out of 

 sight of, from Red river to St. Louis, Missouri Territory, 

 In this distance of about five lumdred miles, in a breadth 

 of, in some places, eighty, and in others, two hundred miles, 

 and seldom more than three-quarters of an acre from each 

 other, these mounds constantly occur; and, generally, they 

 are symmetrically arranged. In all this extent, there are 

 hardly two-thirds of the surface vacant. What an immense 

 population must have inhabited these innumerable huts! 

 They all contain the ruins of human works; and many of 

 them the bones of the inhabitants, and some of their pro- 

 ductions. 



On the banks of White river, where the earth had caved 

 in, I found part of an earthen coffin, in which the neck 

 bones and the scnll were yet remaining; and on top of the 

 neck bone, as I dug to see what bone could be inserted thus 

 in part of an earthen box, I found a parcel of pieces of 

 hones cut rounds and remaining on the neck in the exact po- 

 sition in which they had been used as a necklace. They 

 were pierced, but the string had entirely disappeared; they 

 were the one-eighth of an inch thick, and three-fifths in di- 

 ameter; and the bones of which they were made, were 

 much better preserved than those of the skeleton. This, I 

 was confident, did not belong to the modern tribes of In- 

 dians which inhabit some parts of that country. I found 

 among the clay, which rolled down from the same mound, 

 several pieces of lead ore, (common galena,) which had 

 been carried there. It is not uncommon to find this ore 

 amongsthuman bones, throughout the whole country ; prob- 

 ably they used trinkets made of lead, and this was a pro- 

 vision for them to dress in the other world. 



Ancient Fortijications. 



There are several curious fortifications in these western 

 countries ; but they are described by Clark, and Lewis, 

 Capt. Pike, and others — except one within two miles from 

 the banks of the Arkansas, and two miles and a half to the 

 north of a base line, commencing at the mouth of St. Fran- 

 cis river, latitude 35°, and running due west till it strikes 

 ihe Arkansas, at a distance, across, of eighty-two miles and 

 a. half, three hundred and twenty miles from its mouth, or 



