The importance of a complete and speedy examination of the whole field, cannot be over-estimated. The operations of the elements, the shifting channels of the streams, the levelling hand of public improvement, and most efficient of all, the slow but constant encroachments of agriculture, are fast destroying these monuments of ancient labor, breaking in upon their symmetry and obliterating their outlines. Thousands have already disappeared, or retain but slight and doubtful traces of their former proportions. Such an examination is, however, too great an undertaking for private enterprise to attempt. It must be left to local explorers, to learned associations, or to the Government. And if this memoir shall succeed in directing that attention to the subject which it merits, and thereby in some manner secure the thorough investigation of these monuments, that result will prove an ample recompense for labors performed in a field of absorbing interest, and one which holds out abundant attractions to the Antiquary and Archæologist.
ANCIENT MONUMENTS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
The ancient monuments of the Western United States consist, for the most part, of elevations and embankments of earth and stone, erected with great labor and manifest design. In connection with these, more or less intimate, are found various minor relics of art, consisting of ornaments and implements of many kinds, some of them composed of metal, but most of stone.
These remains are spread over a vast extent of country. They are found on the sources of the Alleghany, in the western part of the State of New-York, on the east; and extend thence westwardly along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and through Michigan and Wisconsin, to Iowa and the Nebraska territory, on the west.[1] We have no record of their occurrence above the great lakes. Carver mentions some on the shores of Lake Pepin, and some are said to occur near Lake Travers, under the 46th parallel of latitude. Lewis and Clarke saw them on the Missouri river, one thousand miles above its junction with the Mississippi; and they have been observed on the Kanzas and Platte, and on other remote western rivers. They are found all over the intermediate country, and spread over the valley of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. They line the shores of the Gulf from Texas to Florida, and extend, in diminished numbers, into South Carolina. They occur in great numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. They are found, in less numbers, in the western portions of New-York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina; as also in Michigan, Iowa, and in the Mexican territory beyond the Rio Grande del Norte. In short, [p002] they occupy the entire basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries, as also the fertile plains along the Gulf.