ANTIQUITY OF THE ANCIENT REMAINS. 231 



These appearances, which are here denominated 'ancient 

 garden-beds/ indicate an earlier and more perfect system of 

 cultivation than that which now prevails ; for the present 

 Indians do not appear to possess the ideas of taste and order 

 necessary to enable them to arrange objects in consecutive 

 rows. Traces of this kind of cultivation, though not very 

 abundant, are found in several other parts of the State (Wis- 

 consin). The garden beds are of various sizes, covering, 

 generally, from twenty to one hundred acres. Some of them 

 are reported to embrace even three hundred acres. As a 

 general fact, they exist in the richest soil, as it is found 

 in the prairies and bun oak plains. In the latter case, trees 

 of the largest kind are scattered over them." 



DATE. 



In the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley " it 

 is stated that no earthwork has ever been found on the first 

 or lowest terrace of any of the great rivers, and that " this 

 observation is confirmed by all who have given attention to 

 the subject." If true, this would, indeed, have indicated a 

 great antiquity, but in his subsequent work Mr. Squier in- 

 forms us that "they occur indiscriminately upon the first and 

 upon the superior terraces, as also upon the islands of the 

 lakes and rivers." Messrs Squier and Davis* are of opinion 

 that the decayed state of the skeletons found in the mounds 

 may enable us to form " some approximate estimate of their 

 remote antiquity," especially when we consider that the earth 

 round them " is wonderfully compact and dry, and that the. 

 conditions for their preservation are exceedingly favorable." 

 "In the barrows of the ancient Britons," they add, "entire 

 well preserved skeletons are found, although possessing an 

 undoubted antiquity of at least eighteen hundred years." 

 Dr. Wilson f also relies much on this fact, which, in his 

 * Lc. p. 168. f l.c. vol. i. p. 359. 



