130 Featherstonhaugh^s Geological Report. 



travellers,* they evidently had never seen. The passage in 

 Carver is so minutely descriptive, and the existence of the 

 remains of a work capacious enough to hold 5,000 men was 

 something so remarkable, that I was solicitous not to miss the 

 place, however troublesome the search, since he does not say 

 on which bank of the river it is, and merely speaks of it as 

 " some miles below Lake Pepin." 



On climbing the bank where these evergreen trees were, 

 which is the right bank of the Mississippi, about eight miles 

 S. E. of Roque'sf trading-house, near the entrance of Lake 



once been a breastwork of about four feet in height, extending the best part of a 

 mile, and sufliciently capacious to cover five thousand men. Its form was some- 

 Vt'hat circular, and its flanks reached to the river. Though much deuced by time, 

 every angle was distinguishable, and appeared as regular, and fashioned with as 

 much military skill, as if planned by Vauban himself. ^The ditch was not visible, 

 but I thought, on examining more curiously, that I could perceive there certainly had 

 been one. From its situation, also, I am convinced that it must have been de- 

 signed for this purpose. It fronted the country, and the rear was covered by the 

 river, nor was there any rising ground for a considerable way that commanded it ; 

 a few straggling oaks were alone to be seen near it. In many places small tracks 

 were worn across it by the feet of the elks and deer, and from the depth of the bed 

 of earth by which it was covered, I was able to draw certain conclusions of its great 

 antiquity. I examined all the angles and every part with great attention, and have 

 often blamed myself since for not encamping on the spot, and drawing an exact 

 plan of it. To show that this description is not the offspring of a heated imagina- 

 tion, or the chimerical tale of a mistaken traveller, I find on inquiry since my 

 return, that Mons. St, Pierre and several traders have, at different times, taken 

 notice of similar appearances, on which they have formed the same conjectures, 

 but without examining them so minutely as I did. How a work of this kind could 

 exist in a country that has hitherto (according to the generally received opinion) 

 been the seat of war to untutored Indians alone, whose whole stock of military 

 knowledge has only, till within two centuries, amounted to drawing the bow, and 

 whose only breastwork even at present is the thicket, I know not. I have given 

 as exact an account as possible of this singular appearance, and leave to future 

 explorers of these distant regions to discover whether it is a production of nature 

 oi- art."— Travels through the interior parts of North America, in the years 1766, 

 1767, 1768, by J. Carver, Esq. Page 57, 58. London, 1778. 

 * Keating's Narrative, &c. vol. 1, page 276. 



j A half-bveed known in tlie Indian country by the name of Wahjastuhchay 

 or Strawberry. 



