APPENDIX. 
279 
Whether this was a i place of defence against an enemy, or 
a place devoted to religious worship, I shall not undertake to 
determine. This,«we may affirm with safety, that whatever of 
these theories we adopt, however visionary this may appear to 
some, many things plausible may be said on each. That it was 
admirably calculated as a place of defence no one can doubt, 
who considers its extent, its height, its ditch, particularly of pa- 
lisadoed and military works erected on the highest mounds or 
towers. If we suppose it dedicated to purposes of devotion, 
and the people to be worshippers of the heavenly bodies, the 
first species of idolatry, the different heights of the mounds, 
and their situation, would lead us to conjecture, that the high¬ 
est was consecrated to the sun, the next to the moon, and the 
lesser ones to the stars; but When we find that this has been the 
idolatry of some of the aborigines, is there not a foundation for 
the conjecture? 
“ Human skeletons have been found in many of those 
mounds. Mr. Griffin, the owner of the Sultzer mounds, inform¬ 
ed me, that his sons some few years since, had brought some of 
the bones of a human skelemn, particularly the head and bones 
of the leg, which they discovered in this mound, on one of its 
sides where the earth had been Washed away. The skull, he ob¬ 
served, was uncommonly large,* the bones of the leg and thigh 
much longer and larger than of common men, and that he sup¬ 
posed the skeleton, which unfortunately was never taken up eii% 
tirely, but immediate orders given to re-deposit the bones, would 
have measured between six feet six inches and seven feet. It 
is worthy of remark, that du Pratz mentions that the Natchefc 
(who according to their tradition came from the west,) deposit¬ 
ed the remains of their sons or chiefs, in the part of the tern- 
* It is difficult to account for the enormous size of the skeletons 
found in the western country. Are they only of extraordinary individ¬ 
uals, or do they prove a race of men of a larger size than any existing 
at the present day? nothing is more common than to find skeletons of 
this unusual size. There was for a long time preserved at fort Chartres 
a skull of an astonishing magnitude; and 1 have seen a jaw bone which 
I could with ease pass over my face, and leg bone which reached three; 
inches above my knee from the ground. 
