ALEXANDER WILSON. 
Ik 
visited the celebrated 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 neighbour- 
hood, is covered with a venerable growth of forest, four 
or five hundred years old, which gives it a most singular 
appearance.” 
“ On Monday, March 5, about ten miles below the 
mouth of the Great Sciota, where I saw the first flock of 
paroquets, I encountered a violent storm of wind and 
rain, which changed to hail and snow, blowing down trees 
and limbs in all directions, so that, for immediate preser- 
vation, I was obliged to steer out into the river, which 
rolled and foamed like a sea, and filled my boat nearly 
half full of water ; and it was with the greatest difficulty 
I could make the least head way. It continued to snow 
violently until dusk, when I at length made good my 
landing, at a place on the Kentucky shore, where I 
had perceived a cabin ; and here I spent the evening 
in learning the art and mystery of bear-treeing, wolf- 
trapping, and wild-cat-hunting, from an old professor. 
But, notwithstanding the skill of this great master, the 
country here is swarming with wolves and wild cats, black 
and brown ; according to this hunter’s own confession, he 
had lost sixty pigs since Christmas last, and all night 
long, the distant howling of the wolves kept the dogs in 
a perpetual uproar of barking. This man was one of 
those people called squatters, who neither pay rent nor 
own land, but keep roving on the frontiers, advancing as 
the tide of civilized population approaches. They are the 
