a full description have
not yet been collected....

The forests over these remains exhibit no appearances of more recent
growth than in other parts. Trees, several hundred years old, are in
many places seen growing out of the ruins of others, which appear to
have been of equal size....

Those at Cincinnati, for example, exhibit so few of the characters of a
defensive work, that General Wayne, upon attentively surveying them in
1794, was of opinion that they were not designed for that purpose. It
was from the examination of valley-works only, that Bishop Madison was
led to deny that the remains of the western country were ever intended
for defence, and to conclude that they were enclosures for permanent
residence. It would be precipitate to assert that the relics found in
the valleys were for this purpose, and those of the uplands for defence.
But while it is certain that the latter were military posts, it seems
highly probable that the former were for ordinary abode in times of
peace. They were towns and the seats of chiefs, whose perishable parts
have crumbled into earth, and disappeared with the generations which
formed them. Many of them might have been calculated for defence, as
well as for habitations; but the latter must have been the chief purpose
for which they were erected. On the contrary, the hill-constructions,
which are generally in the strongest military positions of the country,
were designed solely for defence, in open and vigorous war.

[Footnote 65: A native of New Jersey, who was taken when very young,
to the West, where he became distinguished as a medical professor and
practitioner. His recollections and sketches are very valuable.]

* * * * *

=_John Bachman,[66] 1790-1873._=

From "The Quadrupeds of North America."

=_262._= THE OPOSSUM.

We can imagine to ourselves the surprise with which the opossum was
regarded by Europeans, when they first saw it. Scarcely anything was
known of the marsupial animals, as New Holland had not as yet opened its
unrivalled stores of singularities to astonish the world. Here was a
strange animal, with the head and ears of the pig, sometimes hanging on
the limb of a tree, and occasionally swinging like the monkey by the
tail. Around that prehensile appendage a dozen sharp-nosed, sleek-headed
young had entwined their own tails, and were sitting on the mother's
back. The astonished traveller approaches this extraordinary compo