1M 
VIEWS OF "LOUISIANA. 
Many, without considering the astonishing number and vari¬ 
ety of these remains, have attributed them to a colony of Welshf 
or Danes, who are supposed to have found their way by some 
accident to this country, about the ninth century. Without re¬ 
curring to the reasoning of doctor Robertson against the proba¬ 
bility of such a colony, I will observe, that it is absolutely impos¬ 
sible that they could have gained such a footing as these vesti¬ 
ges indicate, without at the same tim'e, leaving others less equi¬ 
vocal. Excepting a wall said to be discovered in North Caro¬ 
lina, but which, on examination, proved to be a volcanic produc¬ 
tion, I have not heard of a single work ot brick or stone north of 
Mexico. The fortifications in the western country are devoid 
of those marks which have characterised the European mode of 
fortifying almost time immemorial; they are mere enclosures, 
without angles or bastions, and seldom surrounded by a ditch. 
The place is usually such as convenience would dictate, or as 
is best adapted to the ground: two miles below Pittsburgh, on a 
kind of promontory called McKee’s Rocks, nearly inaccessible 
on three sides, there is a fortification formed by a single line on 
“The land side. They are sometimes, it is true, laid off with reg¬ 
ularity, in the form of a parallelogram, semicircle, or square, 
but most commonly they are irregular. 
We are often tempted by a fondness for the marvellous, to 
seek out remote and improbable causes, for that which may be 
explained by the most obvious. In the eagerness'to prove the 
existence of the Welsh colony, by attributing to them these re¬ 
mains, we forget that the natives of the country when first dis¬ 
covered by Europeans, were universally in the habit of fortify¬ 
ing In the early, wars of the New England colonists with the 
Indians, we are informed, that Philip, chief of the Niphet tribe, 
defended himself in a fort which he had constructed, and suffi¬ 
ciently large to contain two thousand men, Charlevoix, du Pratz, 
and others, relate the particulars of several sieges. A fortifica¬ 
tion is one of the first things that would naturally suggest itself 
in a war: they have been known to all people; the same mind 
which would invent means of protection for the person of a sin¬ 
gle individual, would also devise the means of security to large 
bodies of men. It is no difficult matter to account for the dis- 
