52 [Senate 



embankment, parallel walls; and these of regular deflection, ellipses and circles, 

 with other characteristics which mark the ancient remains of the west. If this in- 

 quiry shall lead to the conclusion that the range of works comprising the mound 

 period of the west, commenced upon the upper waters of the Allegany, it may not 

 be without interest in determining the distribution of the races which have held 

 supremacy of the continent. These works certainly must have been reared at some 

 ancient and indefinite era of time, and I have no doubt may rival in antiquity the 

 barrows of Europe. "We may suppose the western hemisphere to have been in- 

 habited at as early a period as the eastern world : the Eocene deposits of the 

 Mauvaises Terres, the Flysch beds, as shown by Dr. Owen's survey, demonstrate 

 that it was occupied by the PaltBotherium, Oredon, Uucrotaphus, while yet the 

 Alps were submerged beneath the old Palaeozoic ocean. 



In our ethnographical researches, however, psychology and philology must also 

 bring their aid. From a limited examination of the Indian dialects, their idioms 

 appear to correspond with those of the earliest language known, of Turanian type. 

 The remains of art connected with the mounds appear to be of different style; 

 evincing more elaborate workmanship than the relics disclosed in defensive earth- 

 works, while the osteological remains exhumed from these ancient barrows were 

 far more decayed than those found within the inclosures. Thus I am led to the 

 inference that these respective classes of works were reared by different groups of 

 the aboriginal race, or even by separate races; or (and this conclusion seems more 

 probable) that the tumuli were first erected, and afterwards, upon foreign and 

 hostile immigrations, the earth-works were constructed for purposes of defence; 

 and that all of these works, so far as our knowledge yet certainly indicates, were 

 reared by some unknown nation of men, and in some far and unknown period of 

 time, over which yet gathers the veil of obscurity. The last vestiges of fallen em- 

 pire, which mark one of the strange inscrutable events in the progress of time, 

 will soon be lost in oblivion, which has already swept beneath its tides the proud 

 palaces of Ilium, and cast its shadow across the Acropolis of ancient Athens and 

 the Coliseum of imperial Rome, as it may yet obscure the glory and grandeur of 

 our own Republic — all the proudest monuments of the world's civilization. In the 

 words of the great dramatist : 



** The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces. 



The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 



Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 



And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded. 



Leave not a rack behind." 

 March 10, 1860. 



