“I believe we may confidently pronounce, that all the hypotheses which attribute these works to Europeans are incorrect and fanciful:  1st. on account of the present number of the works; 2d. on account of their antiquity; having from every appearance been erected a long time before the discovery of America; and, finally, their form and manner are varient from European fortifications, either in ancient or modern times.

“It is equally clear that they were not the work of the Indians.  Until the Senecas, who are renowned for their national vanity, had seen the attention of the Americans attracted to these erections, and had invented the fabulous account of which I have spoken, the Indians of the present day did not pretend to know any thing about their origin.  They were beyond the reach of all their traditions, and were lost in the abyss of unexplored antiquity.”

At the Bull shoals, east branch of White river in Missouri, several feet below the surface of the banks, reliqua were found which indicated that this spot had formerly been the seat of metalurgical operations.  The alloy appeared to be lead united with silver.  Arrow-heads cut out of flint, and pieces of earthen pots which had evidently undergone the action of fire, were also found here.  The period of time at which these operations were carried on in this place must have been very remote, as the present banks have been since entirely formed by alluvial deposits.

Near the Teel-te-nah (or dripping-fork), which empties itself into the La Platte, and not far distant from its junction with that river, there is an extensive cavern, in which are deposited several mummies.  Some tribes which roam this region have a tradition, that the first Indian ascended through this aperture, and settled on the earth’s surface.

A few years since, on the Merrimac river in St. Louis county, a number of pigmy graves were discovered.  The coffins were of stone; and the length of the bodies which they contained, judging from that of the coffins, could not have been more than from three feet and a half to four feet.  The graves were numerous, and the skeletons in some instances nearly entire.

In the month of June (1830), a party of gentlemen, whilst in pursuit of wild turkeys, in Hart county, Kentucky, discovered, on the top of a small knoll, a hole sufficiently large to admit a man’s body.  Having procured lights, they descended, and at the depth of about sixty feet, entered a cavern, sixteen or eighteen feet square, apparently hewn out of solid rock.  The whole chamber was filled with human skeletons, which they supposed, from the size, to be those of women and children.  The place was perfectly dry, and the bones were in a state of great preservation.  They wished to ascertain how deep the bones lay, and dug through them between four and seven feet, but found them quite as plentiful as at the top:  on coming to this depth, dampness appeared, and an unpleasant effluvia arising, obliged them to desist.  There was no outlet to the cavern.  A large snake, which appeared to be perfectly docile, passed several times round the apartment whilst they remained.