AN ACCOUNT 
OF 
ANCIENT REJMAINS 
ON THIS CONTINENT, 
Mou>"DS and tumuU covering human relics, have been traced from 
Wales across the continent, through Russia and Tartary. I have been 
able to find no account of these works on the western side of the Rocky 
mountains, or in the direction of Behring's Straits ; but, from the limits 
of Ouiskonsin, they constantly increase in number and extent.* 
On the south side of Ontario, one of these remains, not far from Black 
river, is, I am informed, the farthest that has been discovered in a north- 
eastern direction. One on the Chenango river, at Oxford, is the farthest 
south on the eastern side of the AUeghanies, of undoubted and untradi- 
tional antiquity. 
In travelling westwardly toward Lake Erie, some are to be found in 
Genessee County, but they are scarce and small until we arrive at Cat- 
taraugus Creek, where, according to the late Governor Clinton, a chain 
of forts commences, extending southwardly upward of fifty miles, at a 
distance from each other of not more than four or five. 
South of these again, extensive works were discovered at Circleville, 
at Chillicothe, at the mouth of the Scioto and Muskingum, at Cincin- 
nati, at St. Louis, and at numerous points along the Valleys of the Ohio 
and Mississippi. 
Among these tumuli and fortifications, a variety of interesting relics 
have been found by their explorers. Vessels of earthenware, utensils 
of copper, painted pottery, vases of curious form, copper beads, and cir- 
cular plates of the same material, carvings in stone, silver and gold orna- 
ments ; and, at Natchez and near Nashville, idols of stone, which are not 
unlike those heretofore represented in my letters as existing in Mexico. 
Drawings of these idols are given in the Archceologia Americana, at pages 
211 and 215 of the first volume. 
• Most intereetin? accounts, accompanied by plates, of the ancient remains in Ouiskonsin Territory, and jj 
the great war path firom the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, are to be found in the January number of Sillimaa'i 
Joninal for 1843, and also in the 31lh volume of that valuable work. 
