OBSERVATIONS AND CONJECTURES CONCERNING CERTAIN ARTICLES WHICH WERE TAKEN OUT OF AN ANCIENT TUMULUS , OR GRAVE, AT CINCINNATI, IN THE COUNTY OF HAMILTON, AND TERRITORY OF THE UNITED-STATES, NORTH-WEST OF THE RIVER OHIO: In a Letter from Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D. to the Reverend Joseph Priestley, L L. D. F. R. S. &c. [From the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 4", 1799].

- Quarto, 10-3/4 inches high by 9 inches wide. Softcover. unbound sheets from the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society". 35 pages, with large untrimmed margins, consisting of pages 181-215. There is offsetting to the cover page and the deckle-edged pages have been roughly opened. Very good. "From the obvious antiquity of the tumulus in which they were found; from their general fabric, or appearance, and from the materials out of which some of them are formed, it must, at first sight, seem very improbable, that these articles are the work of any people in the state of society and improvement of the Indian[s].of North-America, that are now known to us. These nations.actually rank higher than many of the ancient and modern nations of the old-world.[A]re there no proofs that the rude nations of America have fallen from a more respectable form of society than that in which we now contemplate them? It appears to me that there are. These proofs are even numerous.In the following inquiry, I shall offer some of my reasons for believing that there formerly existed in many parts of North-America, a race of people, who, whilst they were more numerous, had made much greater advances in the arts, and in improvement, than the present races of Indians, or than their ancestors since our actual acquaintance with them." "The vestiges to which I allude are of various kinds. They are principally, however, mounds of earth of different forms and sizes; some of them, undoubtedly, depositories of human bones; whilst others appear to have been constructed as the bases of temples, that were erected during the extensive reign of an hideous superstition in America. Others, again, and these are the principal, appear to have been intended as fortifications, or the walls of large towns."Benjamin Smith Barton, 1766-1815, was an American botanist and physician. He was one of the first professors of natural history in the United States. He had a lifelong interest in Native Americans who in large part are the subject of this paper. Barton was also an advisor to the Lewis and Clark expedition. He was the first to erect a greenhouse in Philadelphia.…