INDIAN MOUNDS. The old Mexican villages, it is said, were built of unbaked bricks, fourteen inches square, and covered with limbs of trees and turf, which, when they mouldered away, formed a mound, similar in shape to those which meet the traveller’s eye from the Red river of Hudson’s bay to the state of Missouri, and probably to the gulf of Mexico. The number of these barrows has, however, been greatly exaggerated. We have seen it stated, on grave authority, that for a length of five hundred miles, and a breadth of from eighty to two hundred, the mounds are seldom an acre apart, and on this enormous blunder was founded a conclusion that the population was once immense. We, who speak from knowledge, affirm that, judging from such data, the former population was not so great as the present. We have seen mounds on the tributaries of Hudson’s bay, and on the waters of the Mississippi, and their numbers warrant no such speculations. They are common enough, indeed, but by no means so common, or of such magnitude, as to make it certain that the ancestors of the present race of aborigines were very numerous. We draw this inference from several facts.

Travelling some years ago near the St.Peter’s river, we saw, at a distance of about a mile, an erection which looked like one of the conical tents of the Indians. Adistinguished individual had lately died, and our guide informed us that the object above mentioned was an earthen lodge which his relatives had raised over him. Being pressed for time, we did not approach it nigher. Supposing it to have been, which we see no reason to doubt, what the guide stated, it must, when the top crumbled down, have assumed the shape of a mound.

The Indians of those regions do, to this day, bury at least half of their dead. They respect the dead highly, and to protect their remains from wolves and dogs, erect over them an edifice of stakes, which, as they possess axes, they can easily cut. Now is it not probable, that before they had the means to cut stakes without excessive toil, they raised a mound of earth in its stead? What corroborates this supposition is, that many, and indeed the greater number, of the mounds are not larger than would be required for such purpose. That they were ever intended for dwellings is out of the question; for we are to learn that any traces of bricks, timbers, or masonry, have ever been found in any of them. We have already said that the fragments of pottery found in them are precisely similar to the earthen pots still in use among the modern Assinneboins. Again, fragments of bone are found in most of them; but could bones have remained any great length of time in damp earth undecayed? We think not—at least, we have known instances where the human frame has been utterly resolved into its native elements within the lapse of a century. But some of the mounds, and especially those near St.Louis, are so large as to be esteemed beyond the powers and industry of the present race of Indians. Before we adopt this conclusion, we should remember that, as late as the discovery of the Mississippi, several tribes kept the bones of their friends for years, and then buried them together, a practice, the remains of which are still distinctly visible among the Dahcotahs. On such occasions, a large mound must have been raised, by the united efforts of a tribe. If we suppose that successive layers were from time to time deposited on the national burial heap, which is, surely, no extravagant theory, the objection that the red men had neither power, inclination, nor motive to raise such tumuli, vanishes.

‘On the banks of White river,’ says a writer in Silliman’s Journal, ‘where the earth had caved in, Ifound part of an earthen coffin, in which the neck bones and the skull were yet remaining; and on the top of the neck bone, as Idug to see what bone could be inserted thus in part of an earthen box, Ifound a parcel of pieces of bones cut round, and remaining on the neck in the exact position in which they had been used as a necklace. They were pierced, but the string had entirely disappeared; they were the one eighth of an inch thick, and three fifths in diameter; and the bones of which they were made were much better preserved than those of the skeleton. This, Iwas confident, did not belong to the modern tribes of Indians which inhabit some parts of that country.85 Ifound, among the clay which rolled down from the same mound, several pieces of lead ore, (common galena,) which had been carried there. It is not uncommon to find this ore amongst human bones, throughout the whole country; probably they used trinkets made of lead, and this was a provision for them to dress in the other world.’

On the plantation of Mr.John Kain, of Knox county, near the north bank of Holston river, five miles above its junction with the French Broad, is a curious collection of mounds of earth, evidently the work of art, but of an almost antediluvian antiquity, if we may form any conjecture of their age from that of the forest which grows around and upon them. They are about half a dozen in number, and arise on about half an acre of level ground, without any seeming regularity. They are pyramidal in their shape, or rather sections of pyramids, whose bases are from ten to thirty paces in diameter. The largest one in this group rises about ten feet above the level ground, and is remarkably regular in its figure. Aperpendicular section of this mound was made about a year since, but no important discovery was made. It was found to consist of the surface thrown up, and contained a good deal of ashes and charcoal.

This group of mounds is surrounded by a ditch, which can be distinctly traced on three sides, and inclosing, besides the mounds, several acres of ground. It is, like the mounds, covered with trees, which grow in it and about it. At every angle of this ditch, it sweeps out into a semicircle, and it appears in many respects well calculated for defence.

There are many other mounds of the same form in Tennessee. At the junction of the French Broad with the Holston, there is one in which human bones are said to have been found. Farther up French Broad, near Newport, is a very large mound. It reposes on a very level and extensive plain, and is itself the largest Iever saw. It is thirty feet high, and its base covers half an acre of ground. As it ascends from its base, there is a slight inclination from a perpendicular on all sides, and the upper surface is as level as the rest is regular. From the great size of this mound, its commanding situation, and the mystery which veils its history, it is a most interesting spot of ground. There are many other mounds of this description in the state of Tennessee.

A mound of large dimensions is situated in the interior of the Cherokee nation, on the north side of the Etowee, vulgarly called the Hightower river, one of the branches of the Coosa. It stands upon a strip of alluvial land, called River Bottom. It is described by the Rev.Elias Cornelius, who visited it in company with eight Indian chiefs. The first object which excited attention was an excavation, about twenty feet wide, and in some parts ten feet deep. Its course is nearly that of a semicircle; the extremities extending towards the river, which forms a small elbow. ‘Ihad not time,’ says this writer, ‘to examine it minutely. An Indian said it extended each way to the river, and had several unexcavated parts, which served for passages to the area which it incloses. To my surprise, Ifound no embankment on either side of it. But Idid not long doubt to what place the earth had been removed; for Ihad scarcely proceeded two hundred yards, when, through the thick forest trees, a stupendous pile met the eye, whose dimensions were in full proportion to the intrenchment. Ihad at the time no means of taking an accurate admeasurement. To supply my deficiency, Icut a long vine, which was preserved until Ihad an opportunity of ascertaining its exact length. In this manner Ifound the distance from the margin of the summit to the base to be one hundred and eleven feet; and judging from the degree of its declivity, the perpendicular height cannot be less than seventy-five feet. The circumference of the base, including the feet of three parapets, measured one thousand, one hundred and fourteen feet. One of these parapets extends from the base to the summit, and can be ascended, though with difficulty, on horseback. The other two, after rising thirty or forty feet, terminate in a kind of triangular platform. Its top is level, and, at the time Ivisited it, was so completely covered with weeds, bushes, and trees of a most luxuriant growth, that Icould not examine it as well as Iwished. Its diameter, Ijudged, must be one hundred and fifty feet. On its sides and summit are many large trees, of the same description and of equal dimensions with those around it. One beech tree, near the top, measured ten feet and nine inches in circumference. The earth on one side of the tree was three and a half feet lower than on the opposite side. This fact will give a good idea of the mound’s declivity. An oak, which was lying down on one of the parapets, measured at the distance of six feet from the but, without the bark, twelve feet four inches in circumference. At a short distance to the south-east is another mound, in ascending which Itook thirty steps. Its top is encircled by a breastwork three feet high, intersected through the middle with another elevation of a similar kind. Alittle further is another mound, which Ihad not time to examine.

‘On these great works of art, the Indians gazed with as much curiosity as any white man. Iinquired of the oldest chief if the natives had any tradition respecting them, to which he answered in the negative. Ithen requested each to say what he supposed was their origin. Neither could tell; though all agreed in saying, “they were never put up by our people.” It seems probable they were erected by another race, who once inhabited the country. That such a race existed, is now generally admitted. Who they were, and what were the causes of their degeneracy, or of their extermination, no circumstances have yet explained. But this is no reason why we should not, as in a hundred other instances, infer the existence of the cause from its effects, without any previous knowledge of its history.

‘In regard to the objects which these mounds were designed to answer, it is obvious they were not always the same. Some were intended as receptacles for the dead. These are small, and are distinguished by containing human bones. Some may have been designed as sites for public buildings, whether of a civil or religious kind; and others, no doubt, were constructed for the purposes of war. Of this last description is the Etowee mound. In proof of its suitableness for such a purpose, Ineed only mention that the Cherokees, in their late war with the Creeks, secured its summit by pickets, and occupied it as a place of protection for hundreds of their women and children. Gladly would Ihave spent a day in examining it more minutely; but my companions, unable to appreciate my motives, grew impatient, and Iwas obliged to withdraw, and leave a more perfect observation and description to some one else.’

With all the respect due to the authorities above quoted, we beg leave to doubt their conclusions. That the Cherokees had no tradition respecting the origin of their great mound, proves nothing. Indian tradition reaches not far. Different tribes are constantly driving each other from their possessions, and the tumulus in question may have been the work of a clan dispossessed by the Cherokees. The trees growing on such mounds prove as little. In 1825, we discovered two skeletons under the roots of a very large elm, on the banks of the Mississippi. They were at once pronounced relics of the supposed former race, and that opinion was current until the iron parts of the handle of a clasp knife were found in the earth from which they were exhumed. The Indians of the vicinity wondered, like the Cherokees at their mound, and the tree appeared more than a century old. The skulls were discovered to be those of Dahcotahs, by a peculiar formation of the lower jaw, and as the tribe to which they belonged are not agreed about their own former dwelling-place, though they left it not more than two centuries ago, we cannot attach much weight to Indian tradition.

In a stone quarry at St.Peter’s, a copper wedge, weighing three pounds, was found, about ten years since, fifteen feet below the surface of the earth. It was perfectly formed, and still bore marks of the hammer which fashioned it. This, and the exsiccated body (it is no mummy) which was found in the great cavern in Kentucky, are the only things we have seen which in our opinion justify even a conjecture that there was formerly another race of inhabitants on this continent. It will not, we suppose, be disputed, that the Mexicans were unable to rear the pyramid of Cholula, or that they are not of the same stock with our aborigines.

We are unable to decide for what purpose the erections scattered over our country, and commonly called forts, were intended. They were probably fortifications, and very sufficient ones they must have been, before the natives were acquainted with fire arms. Whoever has seen with what incredible despatch a modern Indian throws up a work sufficient for the protection of his own body, with no better implement than his knife, will readily admit that a tribe were fully competent to erect these works of an antediluvian people.

The great work which the impostor Carver pretends to have seen on the Mississippi, never had existence, save in the pages of his deceitful book. We have often sought without finding it, and the Indians of the neighborhood know nothing about it.

On the eastern shore of lake Pepin, about three miles from its debouchure, is an extensive prairie, and on its edge, commanding the lake and the plain, are the ruins of a regular four-bastioned fort. The curtain and the two western bastions have crumbled away, and fallen into the lake; but the two other bastions and three curtains, with the corresponding ditches, scarps and counterscarps, are perfectly distinct, and might be repaired with little trouble. From its commanding situation, and its regularity, it is plain that cannon were mounted upon it, and that it was built by the early French traders or travellers. This assumption is confirmed by the fact, that asparagus still grows wild among the ruins, though it is found in no other part of the country. Yet Indian tradition knows nothing of the origin of the fort, or its uses.

OLD FORTS. Among what may be called the antiquities of America, there are few things which excite more interest than the fortifications of the Highlands of the Hudson. It will readily be remembered that this river was a pass of vast importance to the contending parties, inasmuch as it was, during the revolution, the only channel of communication between the British armies in Canada and those on the sea board. To prevent a junction, which would have been ruinous to the cause of freedom, general Washington occupied the Highlands, and made every height bristle with cannon. The remains of many of the fortifications are still distinctly visible to the traveller, as he passes up and down the river; but it is in vain, excepting in a few instances, that he inquires their history, or even their names. Those at and about West Point, however, are better known. It is needless to tell here how this post was well nigh betrayed by the traitor Arnold—the story is still fresh in the memory of all men, and it is our business to say what may be said of the works his treason would have surrendered.

West Point is situated at a bend, and the only abrupt one in the whole course of the Hudson from New York to Albany. It is a large plain, elevated several hundred feet above the level of the river. Directly opposite is a large island, called Constitution island, on which are many eminences commanding the river, which were crowned with fortifications. Fort Constitution, the principal of these, is still entire.

On a height below West Point may be observed the remains of fort Montgomery, the guns of which, it is believed, compelled the Vulture sloop of war to retire farther down the river, and was thus the cause of the land excursion and capture of AndrÉ, and consequently of the safety of the post. The extremity of the Point is occupied by the ruins of fort Clinton, which commanded two ranges on the river, and was an extensive as well as a very strong and important work. It was just opposite this fort that an enormous iron chain was stretched across the river to obstruct the passage. It was broken by an English man of war under full sail; but the vessel was so injured in the attempt, as to be obliged to put back. There are many other fortifications of minor importance on and about the Point, which, as well as those already mentioned, are undergoing a rapid process of decay, and will probably disappear in less than a century.

But what strikes the eye of the traveller with most imposing effect, are the hoary ruins of fort Putnam, familiarly called Old Fort Put. They stand five hundred feet immediately above the plain of West Point, and once commanded all the batteries on and about it. They have very much the appearance of a dilapidated castle. The work is of small extent, but very strong. It stands on the apex of a steep hill, and the wall on the northern side hangs upon the edge of a perpendicular precipice. On the other sides, the walls are so high and steep, as to render escalade impracticable. The walls are solid and very thick, and contain within their mass apartments for the garrison, and furnaces for heating shot. There was once an excellent well within the area; but it is now choked and rendered useless by fragments of the crumbling masonry. One of the angles contains two cells, probably designed for prisoners, and for black holes. Tradition erroneously says that major AndrÉ was confined in one of them. Altogether, the whole ruin has an imposing appearance, for it is in strict keeping with the grandeur and wildness of the surrounding scenery, and serves to awaken many pleasing historical recollections in the American spectator. In the midst of embattled heights it stands, ‘the key-stone of the arch.’ Of its strength we may say, that an enemy could not have taken it without overwhelming numbers, and loss proportionate, or without bombarding it. In short, it is, in many respects, like what we read of the hill forts of India. We hope the proverbial economy of our government will not suffer so interesting a historical monument to fall into utter decay, and the rather, that a very small expense would restore it to its original condition.

The remains of fort William Henry, at the head of lake George, are traced with much interest by every traveller. It was merely a sand fort, but of great extent. The exterior redoubt, which may still be traced, comprehends the whole plain between the mountain and the lake, and the inner works, commanding the water, are in some places very distinct. The plain pointed out as the parade ground, is extensive and beautiful. This was the scene of the most wanton and perfidious massacre which ever disgraced the annals of warfare. Not all the consecrated water which the French carried home from the ‘Sacremer,’ as they beautifully termed the crystal lake, could wash out the foul stain which this transaction left on the French arms and French faith. The garrison, consisting of three thousand English and provincials, under colonel Munro, surrendered, after a long and desperate resistance, to the French army of ten thousand men, commanded by the marquis de Montcalm, in 1757. By the terms of the capitulation, the garrison were to receive a safe escort to fort Edward. They accordingly marched out to the parade ground, stacked their arms, and awaited the escort. The Indians, to the number of several thousand, armed with tomahawks and knives, immediately surrounded them, and began to strip them by force of their clothing. Colonel Munro, who was in the French camp, anxiously demanded the escort; but Montcalm delayed it upon frivolous pretences, and finally refused it. The French stood with folded arms, and beheld the massacre within pistol shot of their camp. Some few of the devoted and defenceless soldiers wrested weapons from the hands of their murderers, and dearly sold their lives; but of the whole number, only two or three escaped. Ayoung man by the name of Carver, from New England, of great strength and agility, grappled with and overthrew several Indians, broke through their ranks, fled into the swamp in the rear of the fort, and escaped. Strong representations of this affair were made to the government of France, and Montcalm was called to a formal account, but was not punished. In his defence, he stated that, by interfering to prevent the massacre, he would have lost the confidence of his Indian allies, and incurred their hostility. Musket balls, grape and chain shot, buttons, hatchets, and human bones, are frequently ploughed up on this ground. These relics are sometimes left for sale at the Lake House.

In the rear of fort William Henry, on a commanding eminence, stands fort George, a small, but, for the time when it was erected, a strong fortress. The walls are of limestone, twelve or fifteen feet thick, and thirty or forty feet high. The magazine and arches are of brick work; a part of the magazine is entire, but the entrance to it is filled up. The walls have been pulled down in many places by those who had use for the stone, and all the bricks which could be got at have been carried off. Several wells, now filled up, may be discovered in the vicinity, and the ruins of the hospital, arsenal, and other buildings. Fort George is completely commanded by the neighboring heights, and of Gage’s hill it is within fair musket-shot. On this hill, however, the English kept a fort, the remains of the redoubt being still visible. It is remarkable that every old fort from the Canada line to Albany is commanded by highlands in its vicinity. When they were built, there was but little apprehension of artillery. Even the strong and important fort of Ticonderoga was effectually commanded by mount Defiance, a circumstance which proved disastrous to the American arms. The prospect from fort George is extensive and diversified, embracing the village, the mountains, the islands, and the lake, for a great distance.

‘Passing Plattsburg,’ says a recent English traveller, ‘the scene of our defeat last war, we reached Crown Point, and then the lake contracted from four or five miles in breadth to a river channel. The point was green and elevated, and on it were the ruins of military works, principally greeted by the Canadian French, when they meditated and attempted the utter expulsion of the English colonists from the shores of the Atlantic. Stories are told of vaults and dungeons at Crown Point, where plots were hatched, in conjunction with the Indians, for burning the dwellings and massacring the families of the settlers; and here were displayed “long rows of scalps, white in one place with the venerable locks of age, and glistening in another with the ringlets of childhood and of youth.”

‘Next, at the entrance to lake George, with its clear waters, its picturesque islets, and steep shores, were the remains of the celebrated fort Ticonderoga, situated on a point of land, surrounded on three sides with water, and on the fourth, deep trenches cut into the morass, with high breastworks. It presented one of the most likely posts to make a gallant defence, that could well be conceived. The ruin of a barrack, like a “donjon keep,” was the most conspicuous object on the point.

‘It is impossible, as an officer of the black watch, to think of Ticonderoga without strong emotion, for here, in 1758, the forty-second, after cutting their way with their claymores through a broad abattis of prostrate trees, under a heavy fire from the French garrison, made desperate efforts, for four hours, to scale a high work without scaling-ladders, by mounting on one another’s shoulders, and by making holes in it with their bayonets. They were so exasperated at being so unexpectedly checked; and by the heavy loss which they had sustained, that they refused to withdraw till ordered a third time to do so by their general; their loss on this occasion was more than half the men, and two thirds of the officers, killed or severely wounded; that is, twenty-five officers, nineteen sergeants, and six hundred and three privates. About this time, the regiment received the honorary distinction of royal.’

The remains of the fortifications at Pittsburg occupy a very interesting position, on the delta formed by the confluence of the rivers at that place. Of fort Du Quesne, but a small mound of earth remains. Fort Pitt may be more easily traced; part of three bastions, about breast high, stand within different private inclosures, and a piece of the curtain, which, within a few years, was in complete preservation, may still be discovered. ‘Iexpected,’ says an intelligent correspondent of the New York American, ‘to have seen the magazine of the fort, which Iwas told was an admirable piece of masonry, and still endured in the shape of a porter cellar; but upon arriving at the spot where it had stood but a few weeks before, a pile of rough stones was all that we could discover. In a country like ours, where so few antiquities meet the eye, it is melancholy to see these interesting remnants thus destroyed, and the very landmarks where they stood effaced forever. Occasionally, too, the works of which every vestige is thus painfully obliterated, were, especially when erected by the French, of a peculiarly striking character. The French engineers, who first introduced the art of fortification into this country, were of the school of Vauban, and the enduring monuments they raised were not less noble proofs of their skill, than were the sites selected of their high military discernment.’ In the vicinity are the remains of a mill-dam, constructed by the officers of fort Du Quesne, according to the most approved rules of the time, like a perfect fortification; a part of the curtain, with traces of some of the bastions, still rewards the search of the inquisitive.

An old fort on the island Canonicut, which formerly defended the passage up Narragansett bay, presents an interesting relic of past times. It is built in a circular form, and is well represented in the accompanying sketch.