ue allowance may be made for the extreme credulity of some, and
the want of personal observation and examination of other writers on
this subject. Gross errors have been committed, and exaggerations of
very trivial circumstances have been made.

The antiquities belonging to the Indian race are neither numerous or
interesting, unless we except the remains of rude edifices and
enclosures, the walls of which are almost invariably embankments of
earth. They are rude axes and knives of stone, bottles and vessels of
potter's ware, arrow and spear heads, rude ornaments, &c.

Roman, French, Italian, German and English coins and medals, with
inscriptions, have been found,--most unquestionably brought by
Europeans,--probably by the Jesuits and other orders, who were amongst
the first explorers of the west, and who had their religious houses here
more than a century past.

Copper and silver ornaments have been discovered in the mounds that have
been opened. The calumet, or large stone pipe, is often found in Indian
graves. Two facts deserve to be regarded by those who examine mounds and
Indian cemeteries. First, that the Indians have been accustomed to bury
their dead in these mounds. Secondly, that they were accustomed to place
various ornaments, utensils, weapons, and other articles of value, the
property of the deceased, in these graves, especially if a chieftain, or
man of note. A third fact known to our frontier people, is the custom of
several Indian tribes wrapping their dead in strips of bark, or
encasing them with the halves of a hollow log, and placing them in the
forks of trees. This was the case specially, when their deaths occurred
while on hunting or war parties. At stated seasons these relics were
collected, with much solemnity, brought to the common sepulchre of the
tribe, and deposited with their ancestors. This accounts for the
confused manner in which the bones are often found in mounds and Indian
graveyards. Human skeletons, or rather mummies, have been discovered in
the nitrous caves of Kentucky. The huge bones of the mammoth and other
enormous animals, have been exhumed, at the Bigbone licks in Kentucky
and in other places.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See Pownal's Administration of the British Colonies,--Colden's
History of the Five Nations,--New York Historical Collections, vol.
II.,--Charlevoix Histoire de la Nouvelle France,--Hon. De Witt Clinton's
Discourse before the N. Y. Historical Society, 1811,--Discovery