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timber, that I despaired of gaining any further knowledge, and would have left the place had I not been detained by my Indian companion, whom I saw occupied in endeavoring to introduce a pole into a small opening between two flat stones, near the root of a tree, which grew on the very summit of this eminence.

"The stones we found were too heavy to be removed by the mere power of hands. Two good oak poles were cut, in lieu of levers and crows. Clapping these into the orifice first discovered, we weighed a large flat stone, tilting it over, when we each assumed a guarded position, in silent expectation of hearing the hissing of serpents, or the rustling of the ground-hog's litter; where the Indian had supposed was a den of one sort or the other.

"All was silent. We resumed our labor, casting out a number of stones, leaves, and earth, soon clearing a surface of seven feet by five, which had been covered upwards of fifteen inches deep, with flat stones, principally lying against each other, with their edges to the horizon.

"On the surface we had cleared, appeared another difficulty, which was a plain superficies, composed of but three flat stones of such apparent magnitude that the Indian began to think that we should find under them neither snake nor pig; but having once begun, I was not to be diverted from my task.

"Stimulated by obstructions, and animated with other views than those of my companion, I had made a couple of hickory shovels with the axe, and setting to work, soon undermined the surface, and slid the stones off on one side, and laid the space open to view.

"I expected to find a cavern: my imagination was warmed by a certain design I thought I discovered from the very beginning; the manner the stones were placed led me to conceive the existence of a vault filled with the riches of antiquity, and crowded with the treasures of the most ancient world.

"A bed of sand was all that appeared under these flat stones, which I cast off; and as I knew there was no sand nearer than the bed of the Muskingum, as design was therefore the more manifest, which encouraged my proceeding; the sand was about a foot deep, which I soon removed.

"The design and labor of man was now unequivocal. The space out of which these materials were taken, left a hollow in an oblong square, lined with stones on the end and sides, and also, paved on what appeared to be the bottom, with square stones, of about nine inches diameter.

"I picked these up with the nicest care, and again came to a bed of sand, which, when removed, made the vault about three feet deep, presenting another bottom or surface, composed of small square cut stones, fitted with such art, that I had much difficulty in discovering many of the places where they met. These displaced, 1 came to a substance, which, on the most critical examination, I judged to be a mat, or mats, in a state of entire decomposition and decay. My reverence and care increased with the progress already made; I took up this impalpable powder with my hands, and fanned off the remaining dust with my hat, when there appeared a beautiful tesselated pavement of small, colored stones; the colors and stones arranged in such a manner as to express harmony and shades, and portraying, at full length, the figure of a warrior under whose feet a snake was exhibited in ample folds.

"The body of the figures was composed of dyed woods, bones, and a variety of small bits of terrous and testaceous substances, most of which crumbled into dust on being removed and exposed to the open air.

"My regret and disappointment were very great, as I had flattered myself that the whole was stone, and capable of being taken up and preserved. Little more, however, than the actual pavement could be preserved, which was composed of flat stones, one inch deep, and two inches square. The prevailing colors were white, green, dark blue, and pale spotted red; all of which are peculiar to the lakes, and not to be had nearer than about three hundred miles.

"The whole was affixed in a thin layer of sand, fitted together with great precision, and covered a piece of bark in great decay, whose removal exposed what I was fully prepared to discover, from all previous indications, the remains of a human skeleton, which was of an uncommon magnitude, being seven feet in length. With the skeleton was found, first an earthen vessel, or urn, in which were several bones, and some white sediment.

"The urn appeared to be made of sand and flint vitrified, and rung, when struck, like glass, and held about two gallons, had a top or cover of the same material, and resisted fire as completely as iron or brass. Second; a stone axe, with a groove round the pole, by which it had been fastened with a withe to the handle. Third;

twenty-four arrow points, made of flint and bone, and lying in a position which showed they had belonged to a quiver. Fourth; a quantity of beads, but not of glass, round, oval, and square; colored green, black, white, blue, and yellow. Fifth; a very large conch shell, decomposed into a substance like chalk; this shell was fourteen inches long, and twenty-three in circumference. The Hindoo priests, at the present time, use this sort of shell as sacred. It is blown to announce the celebration of religious festivals. Sixth; under a heap of dust and tenuous shreds of feathered cloth and hair, a parcel of brass rings, cut out of a solid piece of metal, and in such a manner that the rings were suspended from each other, without the aid of solder or any other visible agency whatever. Each ring was three inches in diameter, and the bar of the rings half an inch thick, and were square; a variety of characters were deeply engraved on the sides of the rings, resembling the Chinese characters."

This is certainly curious and interesting; and we wish that Mr. Priest had limited the scope of his work to the collection of similar well authenticated accounts, instead of running wild in speculations, which, however ingenious, are misplaced in a work of so sober a character, and tend only to throw discredit and ridicule upon his otherwise estimable and really valuable labors. We have, ourselves, surveyed some fifteen or twenty of these ancient works; some of them being, perhaps, the very remains which our author alludes to, as mentioned by Carver, on the Upper Mississippi, (he might have better quoted the higher authority of Mr. Schoolcraft and Major Long) and others, a thousand miles away from them, which Carver never pretended to have seen. We have examined, too, many of the stone cells described by Mr. Ash, which, though answering exactly to his account of their shape and arrangement, contained nothing but dust. With regard to the mounds themselves, we fear that all clue to the cause of their erection, and the race who reared them, is irrevocably lost in the shadows of the all-absorbing past. With regard to the bodies which are sometimes found buried in them, we find nothing in all concurrent testimony to convince us that they did not belong to the existing race of Indians, and were not placed there within the last few hundred years. The ancient weapons and ornaments of metal, that are found interred with these bodies, do indeed afford a singular subject for curious speculation. Of their existence we have

not a doubt; for, besides those found in various public collections, we have seen a brass hatchet taken from a mound in Western Virginia, in the possession of a person who dwelt near the spot where it was discovered. This, however, like the brass rings graven with Chinese characters, found by Mr. Ash, we conceive had nothing to do with the state of the arts existing among the people who were thus buried with their favorite toys. The rest of the equipments and finery, even to the conch shell described by Mr. A., are those of a modern Indian; and it is worthy of remark, that wherever these metallic weapons and ornaments are found, they are always accompanied by other effects, showing a similar barbarous taste. How then are we to account for their existence? The solution is easy. They have been waifs from some shipwrecked vessel cast upon the strand, and found by the natives upon the coast, and transmitted from hand to hand until they reached those western tribes, whose custom it was to inter their favorite effects with the dead, when they were buried, with the bows and arrows of some barbarous chiefs. He who thinks it strange that they could make their way so far into the interior, must remember that that remarkable race, "the Romans of this continent,"* as Dewitt Clinton called

*Notwithstanding the valuable notes of Colden, the history of this powerful republic is yet to be written. The author of the Last of the Mohicans is the one to do it. He has brilliantly and admirably shown the results of their system in more than one of his characters, (the creature of institutions as peculiar and as operative as those of Sparta,) although he has much impaired the effect of his portrait by giving the same attributes to the western savage of the present day.

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them, who dwelt around the head waters of the Ohio, the Susquehannah, and the Hudson, carried their expeditions a thousand miles away from their head-quarters n the state of New-York. Here they had the key of the Chesapeake, the Mississippi, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence with all its chain of lakes. Their canoes were kept on every tributary; and at the very time La Salle met six hundred of their warriors pursuing the Illinwas over the smooth prairies of the far West, the hills of Maine, and the swamps of Carolina, were not free from their invasion.

The real discoveries upon this continent, or rather the explanation of such, are to be made hereafter, we suspect, by the Geologist. We know not, however, how his science can explain the singular details quoted by Mr. Priest from Morse's geography and Schoolcraft's travels. (See pp. 157, 158, 159.)

A drawing, which purports to be a fac-simile of these tracks, is given in the volume before us.

Although we have already exceeded the limits assigned to a single work in these notices yet the relation is so interesting that we would still find room, if possible, for the following extracts. (See pp. 173, 174, 175, 176, 187.)

We cannot take leave of the work before us, however, without observing, that notwithstanding the jocose manner in which we have treated some parts of Mr.Priest's book, which we thought trenched unnecessarily upon sacred ground, it will well repay examination: and of this there can hardly be better proof than the fact mentioned in the title-page, that "twenty-two thousand copies of the work have been published within thirty months for subscribers only."

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In this connexion it may not be improper to mention that we have received an interesting letter, referring to the paper on the Antiquities of North America in our January number. After noticing the writer's ingenious hypothesis-that the relics discovered belonged to the crew of a Phoenician vessel blown accidentally from her course to the shores of the Western world ages before the Christian era, or to that race which constructed the mounds of the West, and, agreeably to the traditions of the present Indians, were conquered and driven southward, probably to Mexico and Guatamala, our correspondent proceeds- "Permit me to ask the writer if these articles have been preserved, and where they may be seen?—for, if they now exist, they would certainly rank first in interest of all the memorials of a former age, which have been found within the limits of New England; and, by examination of the cranium, if not too much decayed, some important conclusions may be formed as to the race to which it belonged. Drs. Warren and Spurzheim, upon examination of the crania taken from the Ohio mounds, and comparing them with those of the Peruvian Indians, pronounced them to be of the same race; and, according to the latter, the organ of constructiveness was large in both, thus affording some ad ditional probability to the tradition mentioned above.

To the Romans, Jews, Welch, Mongols, and almost every other known nation, has the peopling of America been attributed; but passing over these varying surmises, it might be well to inquire why so little can be learned with certainty with regard to its early history. Who, upon examining the magnificent ruins lately discovered in and about Palanque and Mitla, the immense city of Otolam,* (which, as illustrating the domestic life and manners of a people long since departed, and whose name even defies antiquarian research, may with propriety be styled the Pompeii of the New World) and the account of like remains existing in various parts of South America-will not come to the conclusion that America was once the seat of arts and sciences buried in oblivion? How little should we have known at this day concerning the ancient Egyptians, had it not been for the literature of other nations and the late brilliant discoveries of Champollion! Destroy all the records of the

The Geographical Society of Paris have offered a handsome premium for the best description of these ruins.

Jewish race, then visit Palestine, and gather, if possible, from hoary tradition and the blackened monuments of ancient art, the history of the chosen people. The empire of the Assyrian, and the mighty capital, whose towering walls seemed built to defy the encroachments of age,—where are they? Time laughs alike at Thebes's hundred gates, and Babel's lofty tower. Witness Tyre and her daughter, Carthage - what know we of those proud ocean-queens save through the writings of their enemies? Their ruins attest not their former greatness; for the all-destroying hand of the barbarian has been there. Such may have been the fate of this continent in times past—and its inhabitants, unacquainted with a written language, preserved not, except through the uncertain medium of oral tradition, faint glimmerings of which have reached us, the history of these changes.

"Here, as elsewhere, revolution may have succeeded revolution, and the barbarous hordes from the mighty store-house of the human race,' poured themselves with irresistible fury upon America-changing government, language, and religion, as they have done upon Europe. The latter recovered from these assaults to make still greater advances in civilization; whilst the former, unaided by the light of Christianity, and crushed under ignorance and superstition, was sunk into barbarism, with but few and faint traces of a better state. At her discovery - if we may judge from the then rapidly progressing empires of Mexico and Peru, which were in some of the arts far before certain parts of Europe-she too might have been casting aside the darkness which shrouded her; and, emerging from the mighty cloud with renewed brightness, might have taken her seat high among the powerful states and lawgivers of the earth. As every succeeding year brings to light some long-buried memorial of an ancient race, the public curiosity becomes aroused, and many are the questions asked and theories formed with regard to it. In the present state of our knowledge, little or no certainty can exist; but time and laborious investigation may lead us to such results as will prove gratifying, and even satisfactory, to our minds, if no higher object is to be gained. To effect this we should preserve with sacred care, all relics of the past, and note, with careful and discriminating hand, each new discovery.* Let the philologist, with critical acumen, examine the structure of the various languages; the physiologist, the crania and mummies so often disinterred, and compare them with those of existing races - and let all be slow, but sure, in arriving at conclusions; and from materials thus carefully prepared, let the strong-minded, sagacious philosopher gather truths to instruct and amuse mankind."

* The inscribed stone at Rutland, Mass., of which Professor Raffinesque in his Appendix to Marshall's History of Kentucky, says: "Many opinions have been formed, supposed Atlantic, Phoenician, Coptic or Lenopian," is, as Mr. Baldwin, late Librarian of the Antiquarian Society, who had carefully examined it, stated—nothing but a mass of granite, interspersed with crystals of tourmaline, in such a manner as to present, to a casual observer, the appearance of blackened letters or hieroglyphics. During the summer of 1833, in blasting rocks for the Unitarian church, then building at Sandwich, Mass., a stone was discovered with singularly formed characters carved upon it, similar, as was then thought, to those on the Dighton rock. A fac-simile of it was taken, and an account published in one of the newspapers of the day; when, unfortunately for antiquarian lore and zeal, some aged inhabitants recognized it as the work of an insane man, who, many years before, was allowed to ramble around the woods, employing his time in cutting grotesque and unmeaning figures upon rocks. These examples are given to demonstrate how important it is to be critical in all observations of this nature.

The Opera of La Somnambula.—By Vincenza Bellini.

IN estimating the merits of those productions of the human mind distinguished by the name of the Fine Arts, it has often been an error to compare them with each other, so as to give the preference to that which either chance, education, or taste may have made our favorite. If, however, instead of instituting such a comparison, we should observe the manner in which the Fine Arts express thoughts and feelings, and consider to what extent these may be conveyed by the different means peculiar to each art, we should then understand and appreciate them better. The exquisite coloring of a painted landscape, the exhibitions of beautiful forms upon the canvass, or their life-like embodiment in the breathing marble, may indeed awaken within our breasts emotions and conceptions akin to those of the painter and sculptor, and inspire us with a fervid admiration for the prodigies of

Della man che ubbidisce all' intelletto ;

still, there are limits beyond which the creative powers of painting and sculpture cannot proceed; and Poetry herself, who aspires to soar beyond the visible eminence of beings and things, and to attain the heights of celestial realms, - Poetry herself sometimes vainly endeavors to tell those raptures of the human soul, which, indefinable and inexplicable as the undulations of a harpsichord, can be fully expressed only by the spirit-like outpourings of Music.

The musical representation which has lately been witnessed on our stage has led us into this train of thought. We have been called upon to observe not only the wonders which Music alone can perform, but those which it can accomplish when aided by the sister art of Poetry.

The opera of La Somnambula, by Vincenzo Bellini, was presented to the musical world in 1830, at the theatre Della Scala at Milan. Its performance was entrusted to singers, who, by reason of the excellence of their vocal and histrionic abilities, then formed the delight of their Italian audience. The unequalled success with which it met was fully adequate to the merit of its composition and the far-spreading fame of its youthful author. It was a new and splendid triumph, superadded to those which had already been accorded to him whose genius had breathed forth its inspirations in the melancholy and heart-stirring notes of the Pirata and the Straniera; and who, in composing the music to Romeo and Juliet, had illustrated, by strains almost as divine, the divine conceptions of Shakspeare.

After the Somnambula, Bellini composed Norma and Beatrice Tenda, (" of which all Europe rings from side to side") and last winter, in Paris, the Puritani, which won him honors unprecedented in the history of the opera. With the Puritani ended the short but brilliant career of his genius, even in the very dawn of its glory; leaving the world to lament over his early death, and to pay to his memory an unfailing tribute of tears -- so long as the pathetic and divine harmony of his music shall continue to awaken within human hearts the sweet emotions of innocent grief, of pity, and of love.

One of the principal merits of Bellini's operas, apart from the musical superiority, consists in the propriety and interest of their plots and the judicious choice of subjects adapted to the natural bent of the composer's genius. Before his time, Italians had indeed listened with delight to the enthralling strains of master-minds; but their tastes were perpetually shocked by poor and ludicrous attempts at verse. Bellini was the first to ennoble his art by wedding it to beautiful poetry. For this he was indebted to Signor Felice Romani, who has won for himself the high approval of the literary world. All his compositions (apart from their characteristic simplicity, evidently observed so as to leave the field entirely to the music) are re

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