ARTICLE III. 
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A Memoir on the Antiquities of the Western parts of the State of New-Yorx, addressed to the 
Honourable Samuel L. Mitchill, a Vice-President of the Literary and Philosophical Society of 
New-York, Professor of Natural History in the University of the State, &c. by Dewitt Cxtn- 
TON, LL. D. 
Read before the Society November 13th, 1817. 
Sir, 
Bacon describes antiquities, ‘‘ history defaced, or some remnants of his- 
tory which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. Tanquam tabula 
naufragii, when industrious persons by exact and scrupulous diligence and 
observation, out of monuments, names, words, - proverbs, traditions, private 
records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern 
not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of 
time.”’ 
_ The antiquities of our country have always appeared to me important, 
and to deserve more attention than they have heretofore received. We 
have indeed no written authorities or documents to recur to, except the an- 
cient French and Dutch writers; and it is well known that their attention 
was almost wholly absorbed in the pursuit of wealth or in the propagation 
of religion, and that their sentiments were shaped by reigning prejudices, 
regulated by preconceived theories, controlled by the policy of their sove- 
reigns, and obscured by the darkness which then covered the world. 
To rely entirely on the traditions of the aborigines for authentic or ex- 
tensive information, is to lean on a broken reed. ‘Those who have inter- 
-rogated them must know that they were generally as ignorant as the in- 
quirer—that the ideas they communicated were either invented at the 
moment, or were so connected with palpable fable as to be almost entirely 
unworthy of credit. Having no written auxiliaries to memory, the facts 
with which they were acquainted became in process of time obliterated from 
the mind, or distorted by new impressions and new traditions. If in the 
i. 
