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90 PATTERSON v. M'CAUSLAND.
On contemplating the traces of what appears to have been the
long since abandoned fortifications, mounds, &c., found in the
great valley of the Ohio, and in other parts of our country, there
seems to be a disposition, in some, to consider them as the re-
mains of a people partially or altogether civilized; and in order to
shew that a sufficient time had elapsed for such a people, like
some of the Greeks who have sunk into the barbarism of Alba-
nians, to fall back into the condition of the savage tribes first
found, by Europeans, to be inhabiting this country, the large forest
trees, which had grown up out of those remains, have been felled,
and the concentric rings of their trunks counted for the purpose of
thus eviscerating from them evidence of the lapse of some hun-
dreds of years since those supposed fortifications had been aban-
doned. But merely plausible deductions, or bold flights of fancy,
however ingenious or striking, cannot be received as matters of
history, much less as judicially established truths, (z)
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most aged as well as the largest trees, in the northern parts of the United States,
belong to the species, platanus occidentalis, American plane tree, as it is called in
Europe, or the button wood, as it is called in New England, or sycamore, as it is
more commonly called in the western and southern states. The largest and most
aged trees, indigenous to the southern states, belong to the species cupresses
thyoides, white cedar, as it is called in New England, or cypress, as it is commonly
called at the south.'—Essay on Vegetable Physiology, by Armstrong, Professor, &c.
Washington College, Virg. chap. 6; The Farmers' Register, by Ruffin, vol. 7, No. 3.
It would seem that the pinus lambertiana, here spoken of, attains as great a size
in the valley of the Columbia river as in California, for Mr. Nuttall, in describing
a bird called Audubon's wood warbler, says: ' We may notice in this species as a
habit, that, unlike many other birds of its tribe, it occasionally frequents trees, par-
ticularly the water oaks, and the lower branches of those gigantic firs, which attain
not uncommonly a height of two hundred and forty feet.'— The Birds of America, by
Audubon, 2 vol. 27.
(z) McCulloh's Researches concerning the Aboriginal History of America,
Appendix 2.
'The possession of the Wyoming Valley has not been an object of the white
man's ambition or cupidity alone. It has been the subject of controversy, and the
fierce battle ground of various Indian tribes, within the white man's time, but for
his possession; and from the remains of fortifications discovered there, so ancient,
that the largest oaks and pines have struck root upon the ramparts, and in the en-
trenchments, it must once have been the seat of power; and perhaps of a splendid
court, thronged by chivalry, and taste, and beauty—of a race of men far different
from the Indians, known to us since the discovery of Columbus.'_1 Stone's Life of
Brant ,319.
Extract of a letter from John Locke, dated Cincinnati, 10th of September, 1838,
describing a place called Fort Hill the remains of an ancient fortification in Adams
county, in the state of Ohio.
'In the midst of the enclosed table is a pond, which, although it had recently
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