The author’s summary of Indian character is for the most part excellent, and in accord with more recent conclusions. See Chap. I. of The Colonies, in “Epochs of American History” (Longmans, 1892.)––R. G. T.
Gen. George Rogers Clark, an early and careful observer, scouted the idea advanced by Noah Webster, in Carey’s American Museum, in 1789, that these extraordinary Western military defenses were the work of De Soto. “As for his being the author of these fortifications,” says Clark, “it is quite out of the question; they are more numerous than he had men, and many of them would have required fifty thousand men for their occupancy.”––L. C. D.
Indian traditions, by Cusick.
This description, written by Withers in 1831, still holds good in the main. The mound, which proves to have been a burial tumulus, is now surrounded by the little city of Moundsville, W. Va., and is kept inclosed by the owner as one of the sights of the place. The writer visited it in May, 1894.––R. G. T.
George Rogers Clark, who was repeatedly at Cahokia during the period 1778-80, says: “We easily and evidently traced the town for upwards of five miles in the beautiful plain below the present town of Kahokia. There could be no deception here, because the remains of ancient works were thick––the whole were mounds, etc.” Clark’s MS. statement; Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes, IV., p. 135.––L. C. D.