Ohio History Journal

J J. AMPERE'S JOURNEY THROUGH OHIO

 

A Translation from His Promenade en Amerique

 

by MILDRED CREW

 

Jean-Jacques Ampere (1800-1864) was born in the village of

Polimieux, near Lyons, in the house where his father was born and

where his grandfather had lived. This grandfather was a merchant

and also a justice of the peace who had remained at his post during

his government's attempt to suppress the Jacobins, and when the

city of Lyons fell to the terrorists in 1793, was thrown into prison

and eventually paid for his fidelity with his head. Henry James, in

his essay "The Two Amperes" (1878), indicates the character of this

victim of the guillotine:

In prison, before his death, he wrote his wife a letter, which we regret

not having the space to quote; it gives one a better opinion of human nature.

"Do not speak to Josephine," he says at the end, "of her father's mis-

fortune; take good care that she does not know it; as for my son, there

is nothing I do not expect from him. So long as you possess them and they

possess you, embrace each other in memory of me. I leave my heart to all

of you." For so pure an old stoic as this to say on the edge of the scaffold

that there was nothing he did not expect from his only son, left the sole

support of two desolate women-this was a great deal.

This son, Andre-Marie Ampere (1775-1836), for whom         his

father's trust in his future conduct and industry is so simply ex-

pressed, along with an implied confidence in his abilities, became

a distinguished physicist who laid the foundation of the science of

electrodynamics. His name, in lower case, is known in every Amer-

ican household as the unit of electric current.

To return to our Ampere, his tastes early led him to the study

of philology and history. His father, who had suffered from the

straightened circumstances of the family, had hoped his son would

follow some lucrative occupation, but it soon became obvious

that Jean-Jacques was a born man of letters, just as his father had

been a born man of science. Upon his return from an extended

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio        65

tour of northern Europe he was appointed to the faculty of the

newly founded Athenaeum at Marseilles. In 1833 he accepted the

chair of foreign literature at the University of Paris, where he was

the first to draw the attention of the French public to the ancient

sagas and mythology of Germany and Scandinavia.

In Paris Ampere frequented literary salons where he met such

representatives of French letters as Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve,

De Tocqueville, Guizot, and Merimee. When he was only twenty

years of age he went with his father to meet Madame Recamier at

one of her salons. This meeting proved to be the commencement of

his lifelong love for Madame Recamier, who was then more than

twice his age. His affection was received by her but never recipro-

cated. Ampere idealized her, called her his Muse. She, on her

part, conversed with him daily as long as he was in Paris, and en-

couraged all his intellectual labors, but being already married,

maintained a strict and praiseworthy regard for propriety.

Instead of confining himself to a research library Ampere

became an indefatigable traveler, making travel an integral part

of an intellectual life. At home in all the capitals of Europe, he

met distinguished contemporaries of many countries. While travel-

ing in Germany he heard Niebuhr at Bonn lecturing on Roman

history; he had long conversations with Goethe at Weimar and

with Humboldt at Berlin. Language was no barrier to him: he

mastered whatever tongue he had need of, even Chinese and

Sanskrit.

Ampere's travels took him as far east as Egypt and Greece,

and as far west as Mexico and the prairies of Illinois. In 1851

he made a visit to the new world. Sailing from Havre in late

August on the S. S. Franklin, he arrived in New York the following

month. Traveling by boat, stagecoach, and train, he made a rapid

tour of New England, went up to Quebec and Montreal, thence to

Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. A short excursion out from Chicago,

by rail, gave him a lasting impression of the "empty and limitless

space of the prairies," after which he was quite ready to turn

eastward. Being a trained archaeologist, he visited some Indian

mounds in Ohio on his return trip to New York. Being an in-

defatigable traveler, he did not end his trip at New York but

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continued on to Washington, Charleston, and New Orleans. He

then visited Mexico and Cuba before returning to France.

One may well ask why a Frenchman, accustomed to the upper

levels of Parisian society, fifty years of age, and in limited cir-

cumstances, would choose to encounter the hazards and hardships

of such a journey. To Ampere the answer was plain. He had been

inspired by reading De Tocqueville's Democratie en Amerique

(1835) to visit the new world and see it for himself. He was a

close friend and admirer of De Tocqueville and he wished, he

said, to be able to substantiate all which that famous writer had

said of America.

Ampere's account of this trip was first published serially in

the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1853 under the title Promenade en

Amerique; Etats-Unis . . . Cuba . . . Mexique. Two years later this

work was published under the same title, in two volumes, by Michel

Levy at Paris. In 1856, and again in 1860, new printings of this

work were issued. In 1874 Michel Levy published a new, illustrated

edition of it, containing an appreciation of Ampere by Sainte-Beuve.

This is the edition from which the following translation of its

chapters XV through XIX was made. These chapters cover Ampere's

visit to the Indian mounds and his visit in New York with Edwin

H. Davis, who with E. G. Squier had surveyed a great number of

the mounds and published their findings in 1848 in their Ancient

Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, a classic of American archae-

ology.

Ampere spent the last years of his life at Pau, the sheltered

winter resort in the southwest corner of France. There he wrote his

chef-d'oeuvre--his L'Histoire romaine a Rome--and there he died

in 1864.

 

CHAPTER XV

Lack of information and American free and easy manner. Cin-

cinnati. New democracies in the West.

This traveling without respite, which has continued for almost two

months, begins to fatigue me. My health is impaired, otherwise I would

have gone on to St. Louis, following the Illinois canal and the Illinois

River across the prairie; as it is, I believe it wiser to think about getting

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 67

back to New York, from which I am still far away. I do not advise anyone

to fall ill in the United States, especially when far from the large cities:

everyone is so busy, so pressed for time, that he does not have a moment

to take notice of you. However, I do not wish to have come out to the

West without seeing Cincinnati, the banks of the Ohio, and something at

least of the Indian antiquities which have been discovered in the Ohio

Valley. So I am going to return to Detroit and, crossing the end of Lake

Erie, go to Sandusky and there take the train for Cincinnati; then, from

Cincinnati, return to New York, after having visited the Indian antiquities

of the Ohio Valley.

18 September [1851]

I take a steamer, cross Lake Michigan again, and arrive at New Buffalo

too late to be able to set out that same evening by railroad for Detroit. Our

baggage was delivered at once at the station, and tomorrow at six o'clock

in the morning we shall start off with it for Detroit.

It is not possible to secure a bed or even a mattress for tonight. We

are crowded together in an immense dining room, we and the passengers

from another steamer which leaves tomorrow morning for the West. These

latter are for the most part immigrants, making noisy and far-from-cultivated

sleeping companions. As for me, I put my small leather case, containing

notes and books, on a table below a lamp suspended from the ceiling and

use this as a pillow; I take from my gripsack an English novel and start

to read, lying upon this rather hard bed, until the men have ceased to

talk, the women to scold their children, and the children to cry, and then

I fall asleep. I am awakened rather rudely by the tavern boy, who throws

a table napkin across me, crying, "Come, comrade, wake up!" The fact

was, he had to serve the coffee upon the very table where I was established,

and everyone else had been up for a long time.

Chafing a little under the rudeness of servants in the United States,

I started to walk toward the railway station, where our luggage had been

deposited the night before. On the way an example of American negligence

was nearly fatal to me: a trunk, hurled upon a ramp without the slightest

customary warning, happened to pass within two inches of my legs, which

would have been broken had it struck them. It was a day of mishaps: I

found at the station neither a locomotive nor any appearance of the train's

departure. I asked if the train would leave shortly and was told that it

would leave in twenty minutes, without further explanation. Americans

hesitate to make explanations.

The time passed and I saw nothing come. I spied some travelers who

were walking along hurriedly. I questioned them and learned that the

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68       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

trains started, not from where they had stopped four days ago when we

came from Detroit, but from a point situated a mile or so away. The rail-

road had received our luggage without any idea of informing us of its

disposition, thanks to which it would have required only a minute for

me to miss the train which was to carry my trunks on to the shore of

Lake Erie. I relate these trifling incidents which may possibly interest the

reader, and I shall describe all the annoyances of this kind which happen

to me, for they illustrate national character, which displays itself in the

most trifling as well as in the most important events. In the United States

it is a rule in politics and in society that everyone manages for himself as

best he can. One is allowed entire liberty of action in anything which does

not shock the opinions or feelings of the majority; but this liberty of action

is enjoyed by the individual at his own risk and peril. No one directs him

or advises him. It is up to him to inform himself as to where the trains

start, and to take care that a trunk is not hurled against his legs. This

policy is summed up in the sacramental phrase, "Help yourself," which is

sometimes translated: "God help everybody, forward, and the devil take

the hindmost!"

If these pages fall under the eyes of any Americans, I shall not be

displeased at having made them a little chagrined at their neglect of

matters which pertain to the comfort of travelers. Among the people with

whom I have had any dealings, I have not found any trace of that grossness

of manners with which they have been so reproached. One meets it only

among the lower classes. What I have noticed above all is the lack of

signs, warnings, and directions for travelers, which is extremely incon-

venient. I would like to stimulate in Americans a desire to reform this

abuse, which is not at all a necessary consequence to self-government.

I do not believe that this matter is at all irremediable. Americans have

benefited by the most violent, and often the most unjust, diatribes. Mrs.

Trollope,¹ whose business enterprise (which was not at all in keeping with

her disposition and character) would not admit her to the best homes, has

written an insulting book on America, a book which in Europe has charmed

the vain aristocrats in whose service, oddly enough, she finds herself en-

rolled. Oh well! Americans have the good sense to make the best of these

insults, in which there is doubtless some truth. When a man in a theater

used to place his feet on a level with his head, people would laugh at him

and shout, "Trollope! Trollope!" and now      that unpleasant habit has

1 Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863). Her Domestic Manners of the Americans

was published in England in 1832. It is an account of her three and a half years

in the United States, two of which were spent in Cincinnati.

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 69

passed. I am convinced that American manners have improved very much

in recent years, for it cannot be that everything is false in these grotesque

pictures by Mrs. Trollope, almost no trace of which have I seen in actual

life. The fact remains, however, that some measures of kind attention and

concern for travelers ought to be taken, measures which one has the right

to expect from all civilized nations, and which one almost never meets

in the United States.

My health, which has not improved in the least, accounts perhaps

for my peevish disposition. I have spent this entire day on the train without

eating, for I recalled too well the abominable fare which I had had in the

stations where we had stopped for meals. It is true that the railroads cross

forests which are scarcely cleared, and for this very reason it would

appear that provision ought to be made for something to eat.

At Detroit I had only time to go aboad the Arrow, a steamer whose

name might have been suggested by some traveler in the United States.

At dawn I disembarked at Sandusky and took almost immediately

the train for Cincinnati, where I arrived at nightfall. I have covered some

four hundred miles since yesterday morning and find myself feeling no

better.

Cincinnati, 20 September [1851]

I get up late, a little weak and woebegone, and walk aimlessly along

the straight and spacious streets of the Queen City of the West. The

season is rather cold, the wind sharp, the sky grey; my first impression is

not flattering. I go down to the banks of the Ohio. The river water is

low; on both shores extend wide beaches which are ordinarily inundated

by the river and have that marshy, half-dry appearance which the ocean

beach presents at low tide. No wharf at the edge of the river, and too few

bridges. Here the bridges are the numerous steamers which ply incessantly

from one bank to the other, breaking the Sabbath stillness with their

exhausts. I ascend to the city again. The streets carry the names of trees:

the names of the chestnut, the walnut, the pine, which seem like souvenirs

of the forest which they replace. Many of the streets are beautifully

landscaped. The citizens have omitted the word "Street" on the signposts:

they dread doing anything unnecessarily, and shorten labor wherever

they can. The pavements, made of flagstones, now and then end abruptly;

one senses a capital city being built in haste and not yet finished. I go

down behind the town and there I find factories under construction, and

beyond the factories are the plundered hills where half-charred tree trunks

remain, such as one sees in the clearings. There are only a few trees which

the axe has spared: a sad sight and distressing to see. It is no longer

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countryside and will soon be a city. Cincinnati, a city of 116,000 souls,

allows about one-half year for the addition of each thousand inhabitants.

city of what was, twenty years ago, the Far West. The Far West has now

than doubled in ten years. In communication with the Great Lakes by

railroad, with the Mississippi by the Ohio, it is the commercial center of

the interior of the United States.

Cincinnati is called "Queen City of the West"; it is the principal

city of what was, twenty years ago, the Far West. The Far West has now

receded as settlement has advanced. Since I am in Ohio, one of the last

states to enter the Union, and today one of the most flourishing, this is

perhaps the place to say something of the manner in which new states

are formed and something of their political constitution. I borrow these

details mostly from the interesting work of James Hall² entitled Sketches

of the West.

Before being raised to the rank of state, these newly settled lands,

whose population is not yet sufficient to let them be represented in con-

gress, are called territories, and are governed during this interval by some

peculiar and cleverly combined plans. It is like a gradual initiation which

they must undergo before being admitted to equal status. As soon as they

are recognized, the territories are directed by a governor, a senate, and a

court composed of three judges. The governor and a majority of the judges

adopt and promulgate some of the laws of the other states which are

appropriate for a new state. These are referred to congress, which has the

right to annul a decision of the territorial government. The governor ap-

points the civil employees and all the minor officials. The higher officials

are appointed by congress.

The first step of existence, or rather, the political infancy, is succeeded

by a second step when the territory attains a population of 5,000 free

men-of-age. Then a chamber of representatives is conceded to the territory.

There is one representative for each five hundred citizens, up to a limit

of twenty-five; beyond that the number of representatives is governed by

the legislature, which is composed of the governor, his cabinet, and the

chamber of representatives. The cabinet is made up of five members ap-

pointed for five years each, unless congress limits their authority to a

lesser period of time. This cabinet is appointed by congress upon a petition

made by the representatives of the territory. The candidates must own

property to the extent of five hundred acres. All bills passed by the chamber

of representatives or by the cabinet must be approved by the governor,

^{2 J}ames Hall (1793-1863) was one of the leading writers and editors of the

West and at this time a resident of Cincinnati.

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                   71

who convokes, prorogues, and dissolves the assembly. The representatives

and members of the cabinet appoint jointly a delegate to congress, who

has the right to take part in debate but not to vote.

All these measures seem to me to bear the imprint of great wisdom.

The administration of the territories is based upon principles entirely

different from those which guide the government of the states. Intervention

of congress, the right of the governor to prorogue or dissolve the chamber

of representatives, provisions for elections, which are based on property,

all these are in opposition to the general spirit of American institutions;

but American common sense understands that one cannot apply the form

of government used in the original states, whose political education was

accomplished through one hundred and fifty years of struggle with the

mother country and which have long been accustomed to govern themselves,

to the new states without political education, without a past, and made up

of heterogeneous elements of every grade and origin. This latter group

needs a provisional guardianship which will prepare it gradually for the

role of independent statehood and for complete equality of rights.

Furthermore, the western territories increased in population so rapidly

that they quickly attained the number which elevated them to statehood.

At that moment everything changed. Being their own masters, they gave

themselves a constitution of their own choice, and these constitutions are

in general very democratic. The fact that the political impulse everywhere

is in this direction cannot be concealed. In the constitutions of Ohio, Indiana,

and Illinois the democratic principle prevails much more than in the con-

stitutions of the original states. The preponderance of this principle mani-

fests itself (1) by the short terms of public office (in Indiana the repre-

sentatives are elected for only one year); (2) through the mistrust of the

military (in this same state the army men and even their relatives are not

allowed to vote); (3) through a facility in revising the constitution (every

twelve years they deliberate upon the advisability of calling a constitutional

convention); (4) through the sharp distinction between the functions of

a representative and those of an employee appointed either by the individual

state or by the federal government. In the new state divorce is, in general,

very easy to obtain. In Illinois it is granted by the judge upon the testimony

of the plaintiff, without giving notice to the other party concerned. Drunken-

ness, or an absence of two years, is considered sufficient grounds for divorce.

The laws against debtors are very mild, as is the case whenever democratic

influences prevail. The distrustful anxiety of democracies is carried to such

extremes in the new state, that it attacks even voluntary associations. For

example, the establishment of banks has been forbidden, as though they

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72       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

feared oppression of the individual by a combination of capital. Likewise,

authorization of associations formed for religious purposes or for establishing

schools, is often refused; they are forbidden to own land for the purpose of

building a church or laying out a cemetery, always through the unreasonable

fear of establishing something more powerful than the individual, through

the dread of a single aristocracy which might arise in a country of equality

and liberty, that collective aristocracy which association legally constitutes.

Arriving at this extreme point of view, the government has deprived the

individual, instead of protecting him, of his right to freedom of action.

Americans must refrain from this extreme tendency which is so noticeable

in the new states and which is contrary to that which, above all, contributes

to the power and the grandeur of their country, the voluntary accord of

individual effort for a common end.

 

 

CHAPTER XVI

The pork industry of Cincinnati. A walk along the banks of

the Ohio. American sculpture and architecture.

The importance of Cincinnati's pork trade is well known through the

humorous treatment which it has received at the hands of Mrs. Trollope.

In this present state of business when prosperity and power are determined

by trade, it is perhaps not wise to ridicule the tremendous development of

any branch of commerce, whatever it may be. It is true that many hogs are

killed and packed in Cincinnati, and it is partly for this very fact that after

half a century one finds on the banks of the Ohio, instead of Indians who

used to scalp the travelers, a city of one hundred thousand people, churches,

schools, theaters, and even an observatory. I am not, however, in agree-

ment with an American author who writes thus: "The stranger who comes

here during the packing season-especially when pork is being shipped out

-is bewildered when he tries, by observation and memory, to keep himself

informed about the various processes which he has successively witnessed

as he has followed the different steps in the preparation of pork, right up

to the last stage when it is sold, and has beheld the endless stream of

wagons which seem, at this juncture, to use the principal streets, going and

coming in continuous files for the length of a mile or more, excluding

all other use of the street from dawn to dusk." There is a sentence worthy

of Cicero, for its length at least. It is almost lyrical and recalls, in fact,

(pardon the comparison!) the verse of Dante's picturing the numberless

files of pilgrims going and coming from St. Peter's to the bridge of Hadrian

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                73

and from the bridge to St. Peter's during the celebration of the jubilee.

The author continues with the same enthusiasm: "The astonishment of the

stranger is not diminished when he sees this tremendous quantity of

barreled pork and kegs of bacon which, since there is no more room on the

floors of the warehouses, extensive though they are, are scattered along the

river bank and encumber whatever free space remains upon the pavements,

within the streets, and even in the adjacent and normally vacant fields."

Without being deeply impressed by the admiration which has prompted

the song of praise which you have just read, it is impossible not to be

struck by the truly gigantic development of the pork industry in this

country. One establishment alone, which goes by the name of "Mammoth,"

has shipped within a single season almost 12,000 hogs. The average pork

trade for Cincinnati is more than 300,000 hogs a year; one year this figure

was raised to 725,000, and for the whole Mississippi Valley to several

millions. These tremendous figures always stagger the imagination, whether

it be a question of time, of distance, or of individuals of any kind, even

when the individuals are hogs!

After dinner I started out in much better weather than that of the

morning, feeling in better health and in a better humor. I followed the

banks of the Ohio upstream, and this time I found charm in its waters

and its shores. I had to pass through a suburb full of warehouses and

sheds used in the operations which the above-mentioned writer admired so

much; then I reached the bank of the river and there commenced my

delight. Gliding at the foot of the dome-like hills covered with fine trees

whose autumn colors emitted a very soft glow, the Ohio described a

graceful blue curve.

At some distance on my right other hills arose quite abruptly. On their

summit I beheld the city bathed in the splendors of the setting sun,

stretching out in the form of an amphitheater, from which gleamed some

slender white steeples looking like the minarets of an Asiatic city. This

radiant mass stood out against a dark background. A heavy cloud hovered

over a part of the city flooded by sunlight. I went downstream again along

the bank of the river; the clouds disappeared and I no longer saw those

golden colors flashing upon the foliage and mottling the sunlight at my

feet. The evening was serene and the countryside quiet. A towboat drawn

by horses on the bank was moving noiselessly upon the smooth and

transparent water. Some handsome open carriages with light wheels were

bringing home to the city some families returning from a drive into the

country. Everyone seemed imbued with that quiet contentment which an

easy means of livelihood, polite manners, comfort without luxury, wealth

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without ostentation, and uniformity of well-being, give, for all the carriages,

all the horses, I might even say all the families, seemed very much alike.

I should like always to progress through life on the banks of this charming

river, at the foot of these hills, in the shadow of these splendid trees, among

these people who seem to me to be very happy. Nightfall forced me to

return to the city, and on my way back I said to myself: And yet it is the

hogs which have made all this possible!

21 September [1851]

I am ill again. My exaltation of yesterday evening has somewhat

abated. I read in the work from which I have already quoted: "Cincinnati

is regarded as the artistic and scientific center of our Republic, as the

center of culture and taste in the arts, and consequently the center of the

most enlightened people of our continent." This is saying a good deal:

Boston and Philadelphia are in a position to protest. However, there is, I

believe, some truth in what he says concerning the arts; landscape painting

is particularly attempted in this already somewhat southern city, in this

country whose beautiful twilight I was admiring yesterday. Mr. Powers,3

the sculptor whose statue of the Greek Slave has attracted notice at the

Crystal Palace in London, is from Cincinnati. But as someone has remarked,

it is odd that the sample of American sculpture represented a slave. For the

free states it was a mistake; for the slave-holding states a well-deserved

piece of wit. The statue is graceful, in spite of certain defects. If there

is one art in which the Americans have succeeded, it is in sculpture.

Besides Mr. Powers there is Mr. Greenough,⁴ whose atelier I have

seen in Florence, and Mr. Crawford,5 who lives in Rome; these are men of

talent. The fact that they live abroad can, I think, be explained. Sculpture

is an art somewhat outside of the usual. It is almost always more or less

an imitation of ancient art. Now Europe no more resembles antiquity than

does America. For both continents the ideal in sculpture is a tradition

which they share. The artistic inferiority of the United States reveals itself

principally in architecture, where it is necessary to create new types to

meet new needs. Here invention is indispensable; but there is no reason

why a man born on the banks of the Ohio River should not be just as

inspired as a man born on the Seine or on the Rhine, when face to face

with the same models. To attain this a trip to Italy is necessary. Steamers

are accessible to make this trip easy even for an inhabitant of Cincinnati.

It is at Rome that Mr. Powers has improved himself; he was poor, and his

3 Hiram Powers (1805-1873).

4 Horatio Greenough (1805-1852).

5 Thomas Crawford (1813-1857).

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                75

first work done in early youth was bizarre and most incredible. The story

is worth the trouble of telling.

Americans have the bad habit of giving very pompous names to things,

especially to those in which they least excel. In this country where a high

degree of literary culture is especially lacking, there are many academies,

but they are called schools and colleges, while a museum is often a collection

of bric-a-brac where shows are given featuring mountebanks and rope-

dancers. There is a museum in Cincinnati. This museum contains, it is

true, besides a thousand unimportant objects, some curious antiquities,

unearthed in the mounds of which I shall soon speak. I have seen there

even a little Egyptian figure which is said to have been found in the Mexican

pyramids; this would be very curious if it were true, but I do not hesitate

to declare it impossible. Unfortunately within this museum is seen a grotesque

and perfectly ludicrous collection. There is a skeleton which goes through

contortions; a stuffed lion dragged out of his cave by a string while a man

behind the scenes howls with rage; a dog Cerberus which barks; a stuffed

serpent which appears to crawl; and other farces for making sailors laugh

and children cry. Well, it was in arranging such spectacles of the market

place that the budding talent of the young Powers was employed. Happily,

within this industrial city was a wealthy gentleman--one Mr. Longworth6--

who realized that Powers' talent was good for something better. Here a

man in civil life did what in Europe is usually done by the government.

At his expense he sent Mr. Powers to Rome to study for several years. This

same Mr. Longworth gave the land upon which the observatory stands,

built, as they say here, by the people; that is to say, by voluntary sub-

scription of the citizens. There is also an astronomical society in Cincinnati.

The composition of this society is unusual: it includes 25 physicians, 33

lawyers, 39 wholesale grocers, 15 retail grocers, 5 ministers, 16 pork

merchants, and 23 carpenters and joiners. Evidently the members of this

society do not make great astronomical discoveries, but they contribute

through their purses to the study of astronomy. Dr. Locke⁷ of Cincinnati

contributed more directly to the advancement of the science through his

electric clock which, combined with the electric telegraph, has furnished a

most perfect means of determining longitudes. Apropos of this, the dis-

tinguished director of the Washington Observatory, Mr. Maury,⁸ was able

to say in his official report: "This problem which has tormented astronomers

and navigators for centuries, has been practically solved by American

6 Nicholas Longworth (1782-1863).

7 John Locke (1792-1856).

8 Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873).

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76       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

cleverness, employing a method which is at once simple and exact. Now,

thanks to this process, longitudes can be determined by this method in a

single night, with much more precision than after years of observation by

previous methods."

I have been informing myself as to the best means of seeing the

antiquities of the Ohio Valley. I am assured that at the town of Chillicothe

I shall find a Mr. Davis who has published important work on this subject.

I hesitate about making this trip, which takes me out of reach of the rail-

road line; but feeling in better health, I have decided to stop at Columbus,

the capital of the state, and go from there as best I can to Chillicothe.

 

CHAPTER XVII

The capital of the state of Ohio. Concerning architecture in

the United States. Public instruction.

22 September [1851], Columbus

In the United States the seat of government is almost never in the

principal city of the state. Thus the capital of the state of Ohio is not in

Cincinnati at all, but at Columbus, whose population is only one-twelfth

that of Cincinnati. It is wise to thus place the executive power and the

deliberative assemblies outside of the great centers of population. The

federal government does not reside in one of the great cities nor in one

of the large states of the Union, but in the small District of Columbia and

in the city of Washington, which numbers only 40,000 souls. At Columbus

the town is little more than one street, but this street is about a mile long

and as wide as the Rue de la Paix. At the end of it one finds a forest.

To the right and to the left are some other streets, but here the houses are

in general small and still widely scattered, as in a village. In the middle

of this town there is being erected an immense monument which will be

the capitol, a symbol of a society in which the individual is small and the

community large.

All along the rustic streets of Columbus one hears hammers resounding

and pulleys screeching. Here is the spectacle of a city lifting itself up. One

can say along with Virgil, when he describes, through the lips of Dido, the

city of Carthage as it is commencing to be built:

Instant ardentes Tyrii; pars ducere muros

Molirique arcem et manibus subvolvere saxa.9

9 The toiling Tyrians on each other call

To ply their labor: some extend the wall;

Some build the citadel; the brawny throng

Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along.

--Aeneid, Bk. I, DRYDEN TRANSLATION

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 77

I do not know what the capitol of Columbus will be like. What I

have seen so far of architecture in the United States has not pleased me,

excepting the great works for public utility such as the reservoirs of Boston

which are built with a simplicity and a solidity worthy of the Romans.

I have not yet visited those of New York. The Americans progress as we

do from the Classic to the Gothic not only for churches but for custom

houses, banks, and colleges. Their classical architecture is not as good as

that of the Bourse or the Madeleine; they do not know how to use the

Gothic as do the English, who now and then use it very well; and when

they wish to invent something new they fall into the baroque. If sculpture

be the art in which they do best, I find architecture to be the art in which

they least excel. The same principle, I believe, accounts for their success in

one of these arts and their lack of it in the other. If sculpture is an art

unrelated to modern life, an art in which the imitation of antiquity is

nowadays more prevalent than the imitation of nature, and if consequently

there is no reason why one should not excel in it in one country as well as

in another, architecture is, on the contrary, an art essentially associated with

the actual life, habits, and needs of the people in whose midst it is

produced. To combine the laws of beauty with the ultimate purpose of

a building is a problem for the architect to solve. It is necessary therefore

to create new forms to fit new functions. Now there is the difficulty; even

in Europe one rarely attains this goal. It is even more difficult to attain

such a result in this country, where, in the midst of incessant and domineer-

ing preoccupation with utility, the feeling for beauty has not yet had time

to develop enough to progress without guidance, and where, in everyday

architecture, one cannot use a style copied from antiquity or the middle

ages. In complying with conditions imposed by circumstances, it is necessary

to find beauty and combine it with utility. One might expect that, in the

United States, utility would be the law of architecture, and that the architects

there would be the disciples of that school which counts some adepts

among us. One of them, Mr. Durand, has set forth the principles of this

school with such assurance that he presents a plan for restoring St. Peter's

according to his system. In order to demonstate this system, he gives the

precise number of the millions of dollars and of men who might have

been spared had they followed this system in the sixteenth century. Accord-

ing to this author, Protestantism would thus have been avoided and, con-

sequently, so would the religious wars, the only cause of which was, as

everyone knows, the sale of indulgences by the pope to help finance the

building of St. Peter's. The Americans, utilitarians though they are, do not

carry the fanaticism of utility so far. Far from subordinating everything

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78       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

architectural to the conditions of utility, far from prohibiting the quest

for beauty, they seek it; but unfortunately, being uninspired, they almost

never find it. Also they are frequently ambitious to be original and novel.

Now architecture, of all the arts, is one in which, except in certain special

cases, it is most unusual to create new forms. Americans aspire, by com-

bining forms in a most unfortunate manner, to attain different styles of

architecture, and they also combine ornamentations according to their

whims, usually without any regard for the ultimate purpose of the monu-

ment which they are constructing. These reflections were suggested to me

today by an edifice which I came across in a street in Columbus. This edifice

was constructed of brick with a large hexagonal tower and a mass of turrets

and doors and windows of white marble, having a very false likeness to the

Alhambra. I inquired of a passer-by what this strange building might be.

He replied, smiling with an air of satisfaction: "It's like a chateau." And

this bizarre chateau turned out to be a school of medicine.

Here is something worth more than this feudal construction in honor

of Hippocrates. I read in a newspaper published in Scioto, a little town of

11,000 souls, that one thousand workmen there are following a course in

chemistry while the wives and daughters of these townsmen sit among them,

knitting. This exceeds what I have watched with admiration in the

Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris: the families of craftsmen coming

to attend the course given by Mr. Pouillet,10 whose remarkable ability as a

teacher is now lost forever to the world. One thousand workers in a city

of 11,000 souls following a course in chemistry while knitting stockings!

One must come to the United States to find among the populace an equal

love of learning.

 

CHAPTER XVIII

Monuments of an unknown people. The Germans in the United

States. A corner of the forest primeval.

23 September [1851], Chillicothe

To go from Columbus to Chillicothe one has to take a stagecoach.

I am pleased to learn from experience how one travels in the United

States other than by railway, so that I may think better of the benefits and

be more indulgent of the inconveniences of this latter mode of travel.

The stagecoach which I took is well adapted to make one appreciate it and

also regret it. It is a vehicle poorly enclosed by leather curtains. The road

 

10 Claude Servais Mathais Pouillet (1791-1868).

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                79

is bad and the jolting very rough. I admire more than I envy those who

crossed this country before the development of railroads. Twenty years

ago one traveled in no other way than as I am traveling tonight. It is

unfortunate that this discomfort falls to my lot just at this time when I need

a rest, but I must go on to Chillicothe, where I hope to find some Indian

monuments and also Mr. Davis' collection of antiquities.

Unfortunately for me Mr. Davis is in New York. I wrote to his

father-in-law, who, with perfect courtesy and a cordial promptness, lent

me his son-in-law's book to use in orienting myself in my studies, and he

put me in touch with a young German physician who is acquainted with

this locality and who has often accompanied Mr. Davis on his archaeological

excursions. This Mr. Rominger, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking

both in German and of Germany, received me with great cordiality and

took me in his carriage to visit several of these great mounds and extensive

fortifications which attest the existence of a population more numerous

and of a tribe more powerful than the Indians which one meets nowadays

in that portion of North America occupied by the United States. Over

this vast area extending from the Great Lakes to beyond the Mississippi

there have been found some very important earthworks and some mounds

containing antiquities of a special character, not resembling any other kinds

of relics. In the collections at Cincinnati I have seen only a small number

of these relics: some pottery, some remarkably well-sculptured figures of

animals, etc., and I am carried over, so to speak, to the time when I shall

have visited Mr. Davis' collection, which is, like himself, in New York.

As to the mounds and the walls, some seem to have been enclosures for

the purpose of worship; others were certainly fortifications, of which I have

seen many in the environs of Chillicothe. They are either quadrangular

or circular and always form perfect circles and squares. Some of these

square enclosures are a thousand feet on each side. Those which have been

constructed for defense purposes are surrounded by a ditch. The rampart,

which is inside the ditch, is usually made of earth. One finds some walls,

however, made of stones, and sometimes these stones appear to have been

carried from quite a distance. They represent considerable labor, and

indicate a population too numerous to have been able to live otherwise

than by agriculture. The weak and less populous tribes discovered by the

first explorers of this country, would not have been able to exterminate

them. Moreover, it is certain that these earthworks and these artificial

mounds which accompany them go back to a very remote period. Some of

the trees which covered them have been cut down, and in counting the

annual rings of their trunks, it has been estimated that some of them

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80       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

were at least 800 years old. As many of these trees were probably not seeded

until sometime after the construction of the monuments, one can without

exaggeration place the age of the latter at one thousand years; consequently

they are of an origin well prior to the discovery of America. The enclosures

which I have seen were square or circular, but in other parts of the Ohio

Valley there are some mounds which have the shapes of animals. One of

these represents a great serpent 150 feet in length, with an egg placed in

front of its head. This figure is especially curious inasmuch as something

similar is seen in England near the famous Stonehenge at Salisbury Plain.

Mr. Squier, a collaborator with Mr. Davis, in reconciling these facts with

the role which the serpent has played in the ancient religions of the Orient,

has drawn up an historic system on the cult of the serpent. It seems to me

that Mr. Squier confuses, as do so many other authors of systems of

mythology, unrelated facts. The facts in themselves are none the less curious

nor are the comparisons less strange.

But, apart from all comparisons, it remains established that certain

kinds of monuments, all of the same origin, containing relics of the same

sort, extending over an area of several hundred square miles in the western

part of the United States, attest the presence in this immense region of a

tribe superior to all other tribes in this country and dating back to a

period at least six hundred years before the discovery of America. This

tribe has entirely disappeared and has left no other vestiges of itself than

these gigantic mounds representing those birds and lizards whose species

are extinct and whose existence is attested only by their footprints preserved

in the wet sand. The name of these people is not known and we have been

obliged to designate those who have raised these monuments and con-

structed these ramparts as "moundbuilders." It is quite remarkable that

one does not find any traces of the presence of these people east of the

Alleghenies, a chain of mountains which they evidently did not cross.

Thus one is able to devise, after a fashion, a map of the regions which

they occupied. Such a map has been prepared by Mr. Davis, who, without

corroboration, has considerably advanced the studies of antiquities in the

Ohio Valley, and with it begins a new era in these researches. It would

be well if some European government should decide to send an expedition

to study these antiquities in the various regions where they are found.

Guided by Mr. Davis' map, they would be able to make excavations with

some degree of certainty.

At Chillicothe I took down some definite information: one could

find all the necessary directions right here from a distinguished merchant of

this town, one Mr. Clemensen. The work of excavating would cost five

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                81

francs per day for each man. It would be necessary to do it soon, because

each day new mounds, enclosures, and fortifications disappear under the

plough of the settler. Twenty years hence there will be no vestiges left

of this unknown tribe. Would it not be desirable to save from destruction

the relics of what one might call a relative civilization, one which seems

to have been intermediate between the more advanced culture of the

Mexicans and the barbarism of the savages? One can only make conjectures

concerning the powerful tribe which has built ramparts and raised altars11

and tombs in the western regions. The Indians of the prairies say that this

great tribe antedates their traditions; they attribute them to the great spirit

Manitou. Heckewelder,12 a Moravian missionary who has long lived among

savages, speaks of a people whom he calls Talligewi or Alligewi, who,

he says, used to live east of the Mississippi River and along the banks of

the Ohio River. "These men," adds Heckewelder, "who built the ramparts

and the earthworks which still exist, were remarkably large and strong

and some of them had the stature of giants." This may be an Indian

tradition picked up by the Moravian missionary, but it is probably not of

much importance, because it is natural that the savages would suppose

the existence of a race of giants in order to explain the presence of monu-

ments of whose origin they are ignorant, and after having imagined this

race of giants, they may have attributed to their ancestors the honor of

having vanquished it.

When one sees these monuments extending all the way from the

shores of the St. Lawrence River to Mexico, one is not able to refrain

from a conjecture which naturally comes to mind. Cannot the unknown

people which has built them be the people which the Mexican prehistoric

paintings portray as migrating from north to south, as an Asiatic emigration

entering America at the northern extremity of the continent? There is a

certain analogy between the defensive earthworks of these unknown people

and those of the Mexicans, between the truncated pyramids, if they may be so

called, of the Ohio Valley or the Mississippi Valley and the temples on the

truncated pyramids of the Mexicans. The monuments which I have visited

and their analogies could be the first efforts of a still imperfect civilization,

which would develop more completely on the plateau of Mexico. One might

thus explain the presence of a nameless people in this country during a

prehistoric era, and their disappearance.

11 What Ampere describes here as altars were mounds built upon human cre-

mations. He uses the term later also to mean crematory basins found in some of the

mounds. Ampere was following the terminology of Squier and Davis, who believed

that the crematory basins were used for sacrifices.

12 John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder (1743-1823).

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82       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Perhaps to this tribe which has disappeared from the face of the

earth we can attribute certain traces of a half civilization, such as these

ancient cultures which seem to have been abandoned and which have been

traced over an expanse of more than one hundred miles across the prairie

from the source of the Wabash to the valley of the Grand River in Michigan,

and especially those vestiges of copper mining near Lake Superior, which

seem to antedate the arrival of the white man. An observer, who seems to

be reliable and who visited these mines in 1849, has given some curious

details. He found some wide trenches ten to fifteen feet long and varying

in depth from five to twenty-five feet, a natural pillar employed within

the interior of the earth to support a roof, as is done in coal mines, and

lastly, a mass of native copper lying upon a wooden framework, which the

prehistoric miners had tried to lift but which they had been obliged to

abandon because of its great weight of about twelve thousand pounds.

All around it were piles of charcoal and ashes, giving evidence of the use

of fire. A very hard cliff had been opened all along a line of formation

several miles in length. What proves the antiquity of these works is the

absence of metal instruments and, in their stead, a great quantity of stone

axes found here and there, and lastly, the presence, above the mass of

copper, of a tree whose branches covered it over entirely. This tree,

according to the annual rings of its trunk, could not have been less

than 290 years old, proving that the project was already abandoned during

an era well antedating the first European settlements around Lake Superior.

These indications of an extensive agriculture, these exploitations of

mines which far surpass what could be done by the Indian tribes such

as were found in the American forests, together with the great earthworks, and

the art objects found within the mounds near the earthworks, do they not

indicate the existence of a race more numerous and less barbarous than

the American Indian? Does not this utterly vanished race offer an historic

mystery of extraordinary interest? Finally, would not this race have com-

municated to the wandering tribes which have survived it, perhaps after

having suppressed it, some ideas of a true religion and a morale high enough

to contrast strikingly with their savage sentiments and their gross super-

stitions, just as it had left within the wilderness some vestiges of a more

advanced society and a less imperfect art? This journey has been well worth

the effort, and although my trip to Chillicothe was chiefly for the purpose

of inspecting the collection of antiquities assembled by Mr. Davis, whom

I shall not see until I reach New York, I do not regard my effort lost if I

can promote the idea of a simple exploration, at little cost, the results of

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                83

which would be almost certain, and which would introduce an entirely new

element into the history of the human race.

While occupying myself with the study of these unknown generations

who have built these curious monuments at Chillicothe, I discover some-

thing more in a small town in the West as I become acquainted, in the

home of Mr. Davis' father-in-law, with their courtesy and kind attention.

I am told that most of the inhabitants have no regard for knowledge.

They are unable to understand why a doctor should leave Europe if he

has any ability; here they are often dupes of a quack who has an advantage

over them because he is an American. I was shown a new home and was

told it was the property of a house painter who was advised to become

a physician and who has thus made a fortune.

One of the greatest interests in a trip to the United States is ob-

serving the results and peculiarities which circumstances have brought to

these shores which are open to all kinds of enterprise. Mr. Rominger, who

had kindly offered to be my guide, had come to America to make some

geological studies, but was induced to postpone his plans, to remain in

Chillicothe, and to give himself up for some years to the practice of

medicine. He invited me to come in and see his curious collection of shells

from the Ohio Valley and to taste some Catawba wine, the American

champagne, which still tastes a bit wild but which can be improved in time.

There on his shelves I found the Animaux fossiles of Cuvier, the Chimie of

Berzelius, some books on geology and also some books of poetry, including

Gray and Shakespeare, and a human skull placed, by chance, above the

works of Lord Byron.

Nowhere under the sun are there two natures more different than the

Yankee and the German: the one a man of action, practical, positive, full

of energy, almost always with some material aim; the other a man of

speculation, intellectual, an idealist, sometimes a dreamer, devoted to science

and thought. It is not surprising that these two peoples, so different, although

both of the same Teutonic origin, should have much difficulty in under-

standing and in agreeing with one another. Nevertheless the population

of the United States receives each year a large contribution of German

emigrants. The Germans now in the United States number in millions,

and they form a class of people who are generally industrious and highly

respectable farmers. These immigrants have little trouble in adopting

American nationalism and culture, and yet it is noticeable that they volun-

tarily band together into societies and preserve as long as they can their

own language and their own customs. It is in the cities especially that

segregation and antipathy exist. I read the other day in a newspaper that

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84       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

in New York a troupe of rough fellows whom they call rowdies and who

create disorder and violence in the less frequented quarters of that city,

swore vengeance upon the Germans and killed several of them.

In searching for prehistoric relics I came across a small section of a

forest which, more than any other place I have seen so far, gave me an

appreciation of that wild and tranquil beauty so characteristic of the

primeval forests. The trees which grew upon the knolls had not been

felled, and around these straight and magnificent trees wound in and out

and interlaced itself the woody stems of the Virginia creeper, often fifty

feet in height. When I stand still the silence around me is complete. A few

steps away, deep-set between two wide expanses of verdure, the green

waters of the Scioto River flow through the forest. This river, without

sound and apparently without banks, seems lost in the solitude; one might

say that it is sleeping and dreaming.

This section of the forest is indeed a remnant of the forest primeval;

no axe has ever touched these trees around which entwine the creeper and

other wild vines, but man, who has not yet cultivated it, has already taken

possession of it; he has surrounded it by a barrier which one must scale

before penetrating this wilderness. A remarkable piece of statuary by Mr.

Greenough, an American sculptor, represents the Anglo-Saxon race re-

straining and disarming the Indian race. Here in the same way civilization

surrounds, so to speak, the uninhabited region which it is causing to

disappear.

I am indebted to the antiquities of the Ohio Valley for having enjoyed

as I never have before, the silent charm of the American rivers and forests.

The country is ravishing: in every direction I can see dome-like hills

covered with splendid forests, at this moment adorned with all the splendors

of autumn. Nowhere in the world are the colors of the foliage at this time

of year so bright and varied as they are in North America; the diversity

of the trees in the forests is very great, and many of these trees in autumn

are dyed the most brilliant colors, blood-red, orange, golden brown, blazing

there beside each other in the midst of a verdure so sombre, so luminous.

One's eyes are really dazzled by this rainbow of vegetation, though it is not

always satisfying. Sometimes these vivid tones are not harmoniously

blended, and they clash with one another, but at times one meets, on the

contrary, the most harmonious and at the same time the most brilliant com-

binations. At such times it is a spectacle which has, I believe, no equal in

any country, and, to borrow the expression of an American poet, "the

colors which the maples display are like the bud which opens or the rose

which pales, or as varied as the colors of the clouds at sunset."

• 21
 

J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 85

CHAPTER XIX

Return to New York. Collection of American antiquities. Re-

ligious origin of the pipe.

26 September [1851], New York

From Cincinnati I returned directly to New York, by way of Cleveland,

Lake Erie, and Dunkirk. Again I traveled by railroad through great forest

areas, the expanse of which seemed greater than ever when I considered the

speed at which we were crossing them. Traveling like lightning for thirty-

six hours, seeing nothing but trees, with here and there a town, a village, or

a clearing, and repeating this all of the next day, gives one an idea of the

magnitude of the forests. On the way from Lake Erie to New York the

railroad crosses the Allegheny Mountains: on either side of the railroad one

sees mountains covered with forests and valleys filled with them. Even in

the region adjoining that part of the country settled long ago, how much

land there is still to be cleared, how large an area still to become populated!

I reach New York on Sunday. The usual dreariness of a Sunday in the

United States is augmented by a chilly, overcast day. How different is this

day from the bright, sunny day when I first came here. Another season

brings another sky. I am far from well, quite ill in fact. While in this state

I receive news which distresses me profoundly. There are difficult days in the

life of a traveler....13

For several days I have not stepped outside nor tried to get in touch

with anyone. I should not give way to this despondency; I must endeavor to

be more cheerful, to regain courage. Study can at times be a very unsatis-

factory diversion and yet the only one which is acceptable. Work is some-

times the only consolation which we can endure.

My first impulse, after this unhappy interlude, was to look up Mr.

Davis and his collection of antiquities found in those peculiar mounds

which I visited on my way back to Cincinnati. Mr. Davis was most obliging

in showing me his collection in minute detail and in taking the trouble to

unpack for me the principal objects in it, and in conveying to me a mass of

information as valuable as the objects themselves. Pipes are the dominating

feature of the collection, and very curious pipes they are. The bowl usually

represents an animal, though sometimes a human figure. The animals are

sculptured remarkably well; the expression of the features is generally as

well executed as any seen in ancient Egyptian sculpture, and as well as any

I have observed at Leyden, in Mr. Siebold's fine Japanese collection. The

animal figure is easier to reproduce than the human figure. In this collection

13 The ellipsis marks are in the original and indicate a lapse of several days.

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86        Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

the Indian artists have succeeded admirably in reproducing the likeness of

birds and other animals in actions conforming with their habits: the eagle

tears its prey to pieces, an otter seizes a fish with great reality of action and

expression; the eagle really tears, the otter really bites. The heron, his long

neck a handle to his long beak, has been as naturally and faithfully por-

trayed by an unknown artist as by a great poet. The articulation of its

long legs, the scales and the gills of the fish which it has seized, are

expressed with extreme delicacy. This is true of the reptiles also: the shape

of the rattlesnake's head and the wrinkled skin of the toad. One finds in this

collection a veritable American menagerie: the squirrel, the turtle, the

beaver, the eagle, the swallow, the parrot, the toucan, the seal, etcetera. It

is not a fantastic sculpture like the Mexican, nor coarse like the irregular

designs of the redskins; it is a distinct and superior art, following nature

closely and reproducing it without distortion. There are also some human

heads carved with remarkable skill; one of these has very individual

features and represents a chief whose face is tattooed; another appears to

be the figure of death. One man, down on all fours and shedding tears, is

presumably meant to represent an enemy, so designed that his victor may

indulge in the pleasure of smoking through an image of his foe, as a sign

of victory.

This large number of pipes proves that the custom of smoking dates

back, as do the mounds in which they were found, at least a thousand years.

This surprising number of pipes may be explained if one reflects that the

art of smoking has been a religious ceremony among many different tribes

in America, and that it forms, even to this day, the most essential part of

the ceremonies in assemblies where treaties are drawn up and ratified. I have

collected a sufficient number of statements to show that smoking tobacco

was an act of piety, and burning it a sign of homage to the Great Spirit.

Strange as it may seem, tobacco was also used as an incense. Even today

there are still tribes in the Southwest who are in the habit of climbing a

knoll at sunrise and sending forth a cloud of smoke, first toward the

Zenith and then toward each of the four cardinal points of the compass.

Other tribes claim  to have received tobacco, as they did maize, from      a

celestial messenger of the Great Spirit to whom they offer the smoke of their

pipes at the beginning of all of their solemnities.

One peculiar tradition is still extant among the savages who dwell

between the upper Mississippi and the upper Missouri. There, along the

divide, is found a red rock which is used for making pipes. All the tribes

of the region assemble here in times of war as well as in times of peace,

because, they say, the Great Spirit watches over this place. A member of the

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 87

Sioux tribe tells that "the Great Spirit sent out his messengers one day to

summon all the tribes to assemble at this red rock quarry; he took a piece

of this rock, shaped it into a pipe, smoked it over the heads of the assembled

Indians. He told them that even though they waged war with one another,

they ought always be at peace at this particular spot because it was common

property, and that each of them should make his pipes from this rock.

Having spoken in this manner, an enormous cloud from his pipe rolled over

their heads, and he disappeared into a cloud. The rocks then became en-

veloped in a torrent of fire, so that their surfaces were fused by it. Two

women, overtaken by the flames, fell into rocks, and from then on no one

could remove any of the red rock without their consent." Several things

should be noticed in this legend: a sort of truce of God, and the remembrance

of some volcanic eruption. I call your attention only to the religious

character of their attributing the action of smoke to the Great Spirit himself.

After this story, one is not surprised that pipes are found in such abundance

in the mounds of the Ohio Valley, for their purpose seems to have been

religious quite as much as funereal. In fact, one finds altars in a great

number of these mounds, but human remains in only a few of them.

In Mr. Davis' collection is an Indian skull, taken from a large mound

which is built upon a hill a few miles out of Chillicothe, and which seems

to dominate the entire landscape. This was probably the tomb of a celebrated

chief of these unknown people. According to Mr. Morton, who is a good

judge in such matters, this skull represents the most perfect type of the

American race.

Besides pipes and altars, Mr. Davis has brought together in his

collection other interesting articles from  the same source. First of all,

there are weapons of warfare, arrowheads and spears pointed with quartz,

such as are found in many countries. The feature which makes these arrow-

heads characteristically American is the fact that they are made of a quartz

which is milky white. They seem to be an imitation of a model found in

nature, in the teeth of fossil sharks. These sharks' teeth, as well as teeth

of bears and alligators, were found in great numbers in the Indian mounds:

they appear to have been used for making a kind of necklace, such as

certain native tribes make even today. Some tools in the collection seem to

indicate that the people who used them had acquired a certain degree of

skill. There are chisels made of stone and polished with sand; a kind of

wheel with a groove on the outside which apparently held a thread-

probably a metallic thread-to operate a drill; some metallic threads used

for repairing broken stone objects; some plates pierced with graduated

holes, which were perhaps used as drawplates. There is pottery of various

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88       Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

shapes, some of which is decorated and quite graceful. This pottery, like

their pipes, is much superior to that made by the native tribes who subse-

quently lived in the Ohio Valley. There are some shells which were found

placed together in the mounds in such a way as to indicate that they may

have been used as money. We know that shells are so used in India, and

also among certain savage tribes of North America. Neither gold nor iron

are found in this collection. Iron came into use later than copper. The

weapons of the Homeric heroes are bronze, and so far very few iron objects

have been found in the tombs of the Egyptians. The order of the legendary

ages of man correspond with the chronological order of the discovery of

metals from which the ages derive their names. First comes the age of

gold: this metal is found near the earth's surface, and in river beds.

Silver is more deeply imbedded and the mining of it more difficult. The

ancient Egyptians, in their hieroglyphics, refer to it as white gold. The age

of bronze, or copper, follows the age of silver. Then comes the iron age.

The moundbuilders had not yet reached the iron age. They used mostly

copper and a small amount of silver, which was often found in the copper

veins. Mr. Davis believes he has identified, in a mass of compact sand-

stone, a kind of anvil upon which the copper was hammered out. Like

several other races of antiquity, this nameless tribe had almost hit upon

the discovery of printing, if it is true, as Mr. Davis believes, that it had

traced designs in relief, which, when coated with oxide of pulverized iron,

were used for printing various decorations upon skins; but Mr. Davis

does not believe that this tribe made a kind of tube to be used, as someone

has suggested, for making astronomical observations. These were more

likely just stems of pipes. These objects of antiquity have one characteristic

in common: usually in each mound there was hoarded one type of object

to the exclusion of all others: here some pipes, there some quartz, and

elsewhere a mass of mica plates which doubtless served as ornaments or

insignia. Mr. Davis believes that each type of object, as well as each mound

and altar, was dedicated to a special deity, and that the bones which were

sometimes found with these objects belonged to a chief or priest devoted

to the veneration of this deity.

Altars were found buried in the mounds. Many objects formerly

placed upon the altars, convey plainly the marks of fire. How is this fact

to be explained? Did these objects serve as offerings? Had these altars

been buried in the earth so as not to fall into the hands of a victorious

enemy when these unknown people fled before a more barbarous people

who would have destroyed them? One thing is certain. These people, who-

ever they were, were in touch with very different and distant parts of the

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J. J. Ampere's Journey Through Ohio                 89

North American continent. They made ornaments of bones and shells and

covered them with bronze and silver; they had knives made of obsidian,

very hard volcanic stone used by the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and

Peru; the eyes of the animals which they carved were often made of pearls.

Now the copper which they used could hardly have come from elsewhere

than the shores of Lake Superior, the obsidian from Mexico, and the pearls

from the gulf to which Mexico has given its name.

In conclusion, Mr. Davis' collection, unique of its kind-since no col-

lection in Europe possesses anything belonging to this class of antiquities-

would be a priceless acquisition for any European museum. Would I could

acquire it for France!

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