Aboriginal Races of America [pp. 59-92]

82 Aboriginal Races of America. [July,
cavations and around the ancient works, (see pages 55-90,) we pass to
another fact, perhaps more important, in its bearing upon the question
of the antiquity of these works, than any of those presented above. It
is, that they are covered with primitive forests, in no way distinguishable from those which surround them, in places where it is probable no
clearings were ever made. Some of the trees of these forests have a
positive antiquity of from six to eight hundred years. (See pages 1416.) They are found surrounded with the mouldering remains of
others, undoubtedly of equal original dimensions, but now fallen and
almost incorporated with the soil. Allow a reasonable time for the encroachment of the forest, after all the works were abandoned by their
builders, and for the period intervening between that event and the date
of their construction, and we are compelled to assign them no inconsiderable antiquity. But, as already observed, the forests covering
these works correspond in all respects with the surrounding forests;
the same varieties of trees are found, in the same proportions, and they
have a like primitive aspect. This fact was remarked by the late Presi dent, HARRISON, and was put forward by him as one of the strongest
evidences of the high antiquity of these works. In an address before
the Historical Society of Ohio, he said:
"' The process by which nature restores the forest to its original state,
after being once cleared, is extremely slow. The rich lands of the
West, are, indeed, soon covered again, but the character of the growth
is entirely different, and continues so for a long period. In several
places upon the Ohio, and upon the farm which I occupy, clearings
were made in the first settlement of the country, and subsequently
abandoned and suffered to grow up. Some of these new forests are
now, sure, of fifty years' growth; but they have made so little progress
towards attaining the appearance of the immediately contiguous forest,
as to induce any man of reflection to determine, that at least ten times
fifty years must elapse, before their complete assimilation can be effected.
We find in the ancient works, all that variety of trees which give such
unrivalled beauty to our forests, in natural proportions. The first
growth, on the same kind of land, once cleared and then abandoned to
nature, on the contrary, is nearly homogeneous, often stinted to one or
two, at most three kinds of timber. If the ground has been cultivated,
the yellow locust will thickly spring up; if not cultivated, the black
and white walnut will be the prevailing growth. * * * Of what
immense age, then, must be the works so often referred to, covered, as
they are, by at least the second growth, after the primitive forest state
was regained?'