ALEXANDER WILSON. 1 XX J 



hollowing, that echoed among the mountains. In this lonesome 

 manner, with full leisure for observation and reflection, exposed to 

 hardships all day, and hard berths all night, to storms of rain, hail, 

 and snow, — for it froze severely almost every night, — I persevered, 

 from the 24th of February to Sunday evening, March 17, when I 

 moored my skiff safely in Bear Grass Creek, at the rapids of the 

 Ohio, after a voyage of seven hundred and twenty miles. My hands 

 suffered the most ; and it will be some weeks yet before they recover 

 their former feeling and flexibility. It would be the task of a 

 month to detail all the particulars of my numerous excursions, in 

 every direction, from the river. In Stubenville, Charlestown, and 

 Wheeling, I found some friends. At Marietta, I visited the cele- 

 brated remains of Indian fortifications, as they are improperly called, 

 which cover a large space of ground on the banks of the Muskingum. 

 Seventy miles above this, at a place called Big Grave Creek, I 

 examined some extraordinary remains of the same kind there. The 

 Big Grave is three hundred paces round at the base, seventy feet 

 perpendicular, and the top, which is about fifty feet over, has sunk 

 in, forming a regular concavity, three or four feet deep. This 

 tumulus is in the form of a cone, and the whole, as well as its 

 immediate neighbourhood, is covered with a venerable growth of 

 forest, four or five hundred years old, which gives it a most singular 

 appearance. In clambering around its steep sides, I found a place 

 where a large white oak had been lately blown down, and had torn 

 up the earth to the depth of five or six feet. In this place I com- 

 menced digging, and continued to labour for about an hour 

 examining every handful of earth with great care ; but except some 

 shreds of earthenware, made of a coarse kind of gritty clay, and 

 considerable pieces of charcoal, I found nothing else ; but a person 

 of the neighbourhood presented me with some beads fashioned out 

 of a kind of white stone, which were found in digging on the 

 opposite side of this gigantic mound, where I found the hole still 

 remaining. The whole of an extensive plain, a short distance from 

 this, is marked out with squares, oblongs, and circles, one of which 

 comprehends several acres. The embankments by which they are 

 distinguished are still two or three feet above the common level of 

 the field. The Big Grave is the property of a Mr Tomlinson, or 

 Tumblestone, who lives near, and who would not expend three cents 



