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[Showing interior location of remains]

CHAPTER III

EARLY TRAVEL IN THE INTERIOR

It has been noted that a considerable portion of archæological remains in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin are inland—or away from the largest river valleys. The lands on the lesser streams were occupied in some instances for the entire distance to the springs. For instance, in Ohio and Kentucky we find only a fraction of the ancient works on the shores of the Ohio river—either mounds or forts. In Ohio the largest collections are found in the interior counties mentioned, as is the case in Kentucky, at a distance varying from fifty to one hundred and fifty miles from the great water highway which flows by these states on the north or on the south.

As with these states, so with the counties within them—the mound-building people seem to have been scattered widely. An archæological map of Butler county, Ohio, shows that the remains are found everywhere quite without reference to the largest streams. In this county there are more works in Oxford township in the far corner of the county than in Hanover township, which lies between Oxford and the Miami river. Today there are six hundred more inhabitants in Oxford township (exclusive of the population of Oxford village) than in Hanover township. There are more remains in Reily township, which is separated from the Miami by Ross township, than in Madison township, which is bounded by the Miami and is drained by a larger stream than any in Reily. St. Clair township contains several works in the western portion, on the branches of the Miami river, and almost none at all in the eastern portion which is bounded by that river itself.

Crawford county, Wisconsin, has also been mapped. Though bounded on the south and west by the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, fifty per cent of the ancient works are at a distance from those streams.