\ • 



482 UNITED STATiliS. 



sors, four and five feet below the surface. These 

 utensils, which lie pretty much on the same leyel, 

 are entirely different in kind and shape from the stone 

 tools and flint arrow-heads of the northern Indians, 

 which are frequently picked up on the surface : they 

 undoubtedly belonged to a people acquainted with the 

 arts, and seem tohavrbeen marie for other uses than 

 those of the later possessors of the region. 



In some of the mounds have been found plates of 

 copper ri vetted together, copper beads, various im- 

 plements of stone, and a very curious kind of porce- 

 lain. None of the Indians ay ho now inhabit these 

 regions have the art of making earthen w^re, much 

 more of melting metals and forming them into orna- 

 ments ; nor have they any distinct ti'adition that . 

 their ancestors had. They regard these things 

 when they find them, with the same surprise and 

 curiosity as we do* 



Among the antiquities of this territory, thougli 

 without the limits of the state of Ohio, may be men- 

 tioned the inscriptions engraven on a large stratum 

 of rocks, on the south-east side of the river Ohio, 

 about two miles below the mouth of Indian or King's 

 creek, which empties into the Ohio fifty miles be- 

 low Pittsburg. The greater part of the rocks lie 

 nearly in a horizontal direction, and so close to the 

 edge of the river, that at times the water entirely 

 covers them. At the distance of a few yards, how- 

 ever, from the bank of the river there are several 

 large masses of the sam.e species of rock, on which 

 are inscriptions also.^ These, it is probable, have 

 been formerly attached to the horizontal stratum, 

 and have either been removed by the hand of man, 



