Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1803 edition. Excerpt: ... bounds to their own, which their camps and strong holds shewed a determination to value and protect. In the Eastern States, where land is sterile and poor, ancient fortificationsare rarely met with, and there it is probable a wandering life was preferred to a permanent abode, where existence was to be maintained by perpetual industry and labour. The mounds are as far from the camp as the camp is from the town. There are two, which are within pistol shoe of each other. It appears evident, that the largest of the two was erected for a post ot look-out and observation; at least it is so admirably calculated for that purpose, that the Americans, during the Indian war, stationed on it a piquet, and even levelled about twenty feet of its summit. It stands on a plain, is of aspheriodical form sixty teet high, and one hundred and fifty through its longest horizontal base. I am informed by a continental officer who levelled the summit by order of general St. Clair, that the view from the mound was very extensive when in its primitive state. He could see both up and down the river, across the Kentucky shore, and all the passes in the mountain in the rear of the settlement and camp. He also observed, that the moundrun nearly to a spheral point, which ciicumstance induced General St. Clair to conceive it a barrow of the dead, and when the twenty feet were struck off the top, he attended to examine the substance, but could discover nothing on which to establish his opinion. However indisputably calculated it is for a place of observation, I am strongly inclined to meet the General in his conception, and to believe that the mound was originally intended for the mausoleum of a single chief who lies interred immediately under this stupendous heap. My...
