A learned American antiquary (Dr. Mitchell) believes, that the skeletons found in the caverns of Kentucky and Tennessee, are those of a Malay tribe, who arrived on the western coast after having traversed the Pacific, and were destroyed by the ancestors of the present Indians. The same learned Writer supposes, however, with Mr. De Witt Clinton, that the fortifications and tumuli found in the state of Ohio, are the works of the Scandinavian nations who, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, visited the coast of Greenland, Newfoundland, and a part of North America.* The absence of all inscriptions is, perhaps, a sufficient confutation of this last hypothesis, unsupported as it is by the shadow of historic evidence. The wrappers of feathers, in which some of the bodies were found enveloped in the caverns of Kentucky, are precisely similar to those mentioned by American navigators as obtained in the Sandwich and Feejee islands, and in Nootka Sound; and the best defined specimens of art among the antiquities of Ohio and Kentucky, are clearly of a Polynesian character. Supposing that the tradition of the Delawares respecting the expulsion of the Allighewies, is entitled to any confidence, the retreat of the vanquished towards the south, M. Malte Brun remarks, does not necessarily imply that they retired into Mexico, or even into

our Indians." The latter are a tall, rather slender, straight-limbed people. Those to whom the skeletons belonged, were short and thick; they were rarely five feet high, and few were six; their faces were short and broad, their eyes very large, and with broad chins. These characteristics, M. Malte Brun remarks, appertain neither to the Algonquin, the Iroquois, nor the Missouri race, but approximate closely to those of the natives of Florida and Brazil, -Chateaubriand, vol. i. p. 347. Humboldt, vol. vi. p. 328.

Humboldt, vol. vi. p. 319. The tradition respecting the expulsion of the Allighewies, places it in the twelfth century.

what is now called Florida. They might have crossed the Mississippi into the western territory. Neither the tumuli nor the forts, however, indicate a population very numerous or powerful, or very highly advanced in civilization beyond the present race. The Omawhaws bury their dead in a bison robe, and place in the grave various articles for the use of the deceased; after which, they raise a tumulus over the grave, the magnitude of which is proportioned to the rank of the deceased.* To the Rickarees, Mr. James is disposed to ascribe the construction of a supposed military intrenchment, which has already, through ignorance of its origin, become an object of superstitious reverence to the natives. The Menomeni nation seem to bear the marks of being descended from a superior race. “Travellers,” says M. Malte Brun, "describe with delight their fine features. Their physiognomy expresses at once gentleness and independence. They have a clearer complexion than the other indigenous tribes, with large, expressive eyes and fine teeth; they are well-formed, of middle stature; have much intelligence, and simplicity of manners. They dwell in spacious huts formed with red mats, like those of the Illinois, repose upon skins, and drink the syrup of the maple. They are friends to the whites, and speak an unknown idiom." + In this description, several of the traits so closely resemble those which Mr. Atwater ascribes to the aboriginal inhabitants of Ohio, whose remains have been discovered in the funereal mounds, as to tempt the conjecture that they denote the same race. If so, they may be the remains of the Allighewies of

* James, vol. ii. p. 1.

+ Malte Brun, vol. v. p. 210. Can this tribe have had a mestizo origin? Their language at all events deserves investigation.

Mr. Heckewelder ;-or, possibly, the fair-complexioned and red-haired Indians, whom Captain Isaac Stewart affirms to have conversed with him in Welsh! * But the subject of American antiquities belongs to another place. We must now proceed to describe the grand features of the physical geography of this vast region.

M. Malte Brun describes the American continent as exhibiting, in the general outline of the globe, "a continuation of that belt of elevated land, which, under the names of the plateau of Caffraria, of Arabia, of Persia, and of Mongolia, forms the spine of the ancient continent, and, scarcely interrupted at Behring's Straits, constitutes also the Rocky or Columbian Mountains, the plateau of Mexico, and the great chain of the Andes. This zone of mountains and plateaus, like a vast ring, crumbled and fallen back upon its encircled planet, presents, generally speaking, a declivity shorter and more rapid on that side of the basin of the great Austro-Oriental Ocean of which the Indian Sea constitutes a part, than on the side of the Atlantic or Polar Seas." + The Rocky Mountains (called also the Mexican Andes) rise abruptly, however, out of the plains which extend along their eastern base, towering into high peaks, visible at the distance of more than a hundred miles eastward. The breadth of the range varies from fifty to a hundred miles. ‡ They consist of ridges, knobs, and peaks variously disposed, among which are interspersed many broad and fertile valleys. Between the Arkansa and the

* Humboldt, vol. vi. p. 325.

+ Malte Brun, vol. v. p. 2, "This correspondence and continuity of the two great islands of the globe, lead us to reject the idea of the more recent origin of America."

James, vol. iii. p. 238. Malte Brun says, their base is 300 miles in breadth,

Platte, in latitude 38° 45′ N., rises what has been considered as the highest peak, and which has received the name of James's Peak from the conductor of the party by which it was ascended. Its elevation above the common level, as ascertained by trigonometrical measurement, is about 8500 feet; and its supposed elevation above the ocean, 11,500 feet; 3000 feet being assumed as the aggregate elevation of the base of the mountains above the ocean.* Other peaks, however, are believed to attain a higher elevation, estimated at not less than 12,500 feet above the level of the sea. The mountains are clad with a scattered growth of scrubby pines, cedar, oak, and furze, and exhibit a very rugged and broken appearance. The rocks of which they are mainly composed, are of primitive formation; but a deep crust of secondary rocks appears to recline against the eastern side of the mountains, extending many hundred feet upward from their base. These, however, are chiefly sandstones, of granitic origin, consisting of rounded fragments of rocks that appear to have constituted part of the primitive mountains; † and beds of loose sand and gravel are still constantly accumulating, formed in part from the disintegration of the sandstone and amygdaloid, and partly by the action of the torrents which are constantly bringing down fragments from the primitive rocks. The absence of any limestone formation, is a distinguishing characteristic of this region as far as explored.

* James, vol. iii. pp. 238, 265.

+ These secondary formations are,-1. red sandstone; 2. argillaceous or grey sandstone; 3. green-stone and gray-stone; 4. amygdaloid, forming the newest fleetz trap formation; 5. sand and gravel. The angle of inclination of the strata of sandstone, often approaches 90°, and is very rarely less than 45o.

The tract of sandstone which skirts the eastern boundary of the range, and which appears to belong to that immense secondary formation occupying the valley of the Mississippi, abounds with scenery of a grand and interesting character. Amid the highly inclined naked rocks which, for the most part, these inferior ridges present, on the side next to the primitive range, from which they appear to have been broken off, numerous conical hills and mounds are interspersed, clothed with verdure to their summits : the deep green of their small and almost procumbent cedars and junipers, in contrast with the less intense colours of various species of deciduous foliage, acquires new beauty from being placed as a margin to the glowing red and yellow surfaces of the precipitous rocks.*

Respecting the interior of the country to the north of the sources of the Missouri, and north-west of Lake Superior, little satisfactory information has been obtained; but the Rocky Mountains are known to continue in an uninterrupted chain, in a general direction of N.N.W. and S.S.E., to a point beyond the parallel of 65° N., near the mouth of Mackenzie's River. Though declining in elevation, they retain a character in other respects entirely similar. It would appear also, that the secondary formation extends uninterrupted along the base of the Rocky Mountains, at least as far as the sources of the Saskatchiwine, in latitude 52°, where coal was observed by Mackenzie ; spreading eastward to the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and knowing, perhaps, no other limits than the Atlantic mountains and the northern ocean.†

* James, vol. iii. pp. 238; 282, 294.

† Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 314-318. In the London edition, of which