Account of the Plan of an Expedition for examining the Coafts of Afia and America. By W. Cox, A. M. F. R. S*. IN N order to forward an examination of the coafts of Afia and America, the Emprefs of Rullia, with that boundlefs liberality and enlightened fpirit which characterifes her actions, has planned and commanded a voyage of difcovery. The care of this expedition, which was agitated and determined during my fecond vifit to Peterburgh in 1785, is committed to Captain Billings, an English naval officer in the Ruffian, fervice, who is well qualified to conduct fuch an underta king, as he accompanied Captain Cook in his laft celebrated voyage to the Pacific Ocean. I fhall briefly ftate the plan and purport of this expedition, . fki, and obtaining an accurate knowledge of their manners, population, and country. In both cafes, and in all inftances, he is enjoined to abftain from the leaft degree of violence is directed to ufe every effort towards conciliating the affection of the natives; to obtain information and affiftance by the gentleft treatment, and a proper diftribution of prefents; and to confirm them in their dependence and favourable opinion of the Ruffian government, to which they have recently fubmitted. While he continues in these parts, he will not neglect an opportunity of exploring the islands and coafts of America, that may he fi tuated in the Frozen Ocean, or to the North of Beering's Straits. Having attempted to execute thefe defigns, he is to return to Os kotfk, where two fhips of a proper burden for a voyage of difcovery will be prepared for his further embarkation. According to its first object, Captain Billings is to proceed by Irkutfk, Yakutsk, and Okotik, to Kovimfkoi Oftrog: having traced the courfe of the Kovyma, and fettled by aftronomical obfervations the exact position of its mouth, he will endeavour to delineate the coafts extending from that point to Cape He is then to fail, and follow the North, the utmost period of Cook's numerous chain of iflands which navigation on the north-eaftern extend to the continent of Ame-fhores of Siberia. For this purpose rica; determining their refpective. he will embark in fuch veffels as longitudes and latitudes by a feries, are ufually employed for coafting of aftronomical cbfervations; tavoyages in the Frozen Ocean; fix king an exact chart of their pofithe longitude and latitude of the tions, and particularly noticing those, principal parts by aftronomical ob-, roads and harbours which appear to fervations; form exact charts of, be moft fecure. He is alfo to exthe bays and inlets which he may tend his refearches towards fuch, have occafion to explore; and caufe parts of the American coaf which; views to be taken of the bearings, bad weather and other impediments, head-lands, and remarkable objects prevented navigators from furvey-; on the coaft. If he fhould be pre- ing. And in cafe his former atvented by the ice, or any other ob- tempts to determine the coaft of ftacle, from getting round by fea the Tchutki from the mouth of the to Tchukotikoi-Nofs, he muft dif- Kovyına to Cape North, and to gain embark, and endeavour to proceed an accurate information of the counby land, or over the ice; furveying try, fhould be ineffectual, he is athe coast and district of the Tchut- gain ordered to fail towards TchuVor. VI. NO 34. Dd kotikoiFrom his Supplement to the Russian Discoveries; lately published. kotskoi-Nofs, and endeavour to penetrate by fea from Beering's Straits to the mouth of the Kovyma, and to make thofe obfervations, and ob tain that intelligence of thofe regions, which he could not procure on the former occafiony. Six years will be requifite for the accomplishment of thefe various purposes. In order to enfure its fuccefs, every poffible encourage ment, in regard to promotion and rank, as the refpective objects are fulfilled, is given to the command er and his followers. No expence has been fpared towards procuring fuch an apparatus and inftruments as are neceffary for this expedi tion. For the purpose alfo of elucida ting the natural history of those diftant regions, at prefent fo imperfectly known, the commander is accompanied by Monfieur Patrin, an eminent French naturalift, some time refident at Irkutik, who is furnished with fuch excellent inftructions: as are most calculated to forward the object of his miffion. Captain Billings fet out from St Petersburg on this expedition in the latter end of 1785. He arrived at Irkutsk in March 1786, and at O, kotfk in July of the fame year, from whence he propofed inftantly to take his departure for the Kovyma. It is not indeed improbable, that, bes fore the prefent period, he may have afcertained the longitude and latitude of the mouth of the Kovy, ma; and thus have determined one important fact, relative to the precife diftance between the Kovymą and Cape North. The length of time requifite for the conveying of intelligence from thofe diftant res gions to St Petersburgh, and the difficulty of obtaining certain information from that capital, renders it impoffible to gratify the further cu riofity of the reader. Account of a Barrow, or Repofitory of the Dead, found in Virginia. By T. Jefferfon, Ffq*: 3. those who have fallen in battles fought on the fpot of interment. Some afcribed them to the custom, faid to prevail among the Indians, of collecting, at certam periods, the bones of all their dead, wherefoever depofited at the time of death. Others again fuppofed them the ge neral fepulchres for towns, conjec tured to have been on or near thefe grounds; and this opinion was fup ported by the quality of the lands in which they are found, (thofe conftructed of earth being generally in the fofteft and moft fertile meadow-grounds on Liver fides) and by a tradition, faid to be handed down from the Aboriginal Indians, that, I KNOW of no fuch thing exifting as an Indian monument: for I would not honour with that name arrow-points, ftone-hatchets, flonepipes, and half fhapen images. Of labour on the large fcale, I think there is no remain as refpectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands; unlefs indeed it be the Barrows, of which many are to be found all over this country. Thefe are of different fizes, fome of them conftructed of earth, and fome of loofe ftones. That they were repofitories of the dead has been obvious to all, but on what particu. lar occafion conftructed was matter of doubt. Some have thought they have covered the bones of when they fettled in a town, the *Notes on the State of Virginia. firit (A Found in Virginia. first perfon who died was placed erect, and earth put about him, fo as to cover and fupport him; that, when another died, a narrow paf fage was dug to the firft, the fe cond reclined against him, and the cover of earth replaced, and fo on. There being one of thefe in my neighbourhood, I wifhed to fatisfy myfelf whether any, and which of these opinions were juft. For this purpose I determined to open and examine it thoroughly. It was fituated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and oppofite to fome hills, on which had been an Indian town. It was of a fpheroidical form, of about 40 feet diameter at the bafe, and had been of about 12 feet altitude, though now reduced by the plough to feven and a half, having been under cultivation about a dozen years. Before this it was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and width, from whence the earth had been taken of which the hillock k was formed. I firft dug fuperficially in feveral parts of it, and came to collections of human bones, at different depths, from fix inches to three feet below the furface. These were lying in the utmoft confufion, fome vertical, fome oblique, fome horizontal, and directed to every point of the compafs, entangled, and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the most diftant parts were found together; as, for instance, the fmall bones of the foot in the hollow of a fcull, many fculls would fometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the fide, on the back, top, or bot tom, fo as, on the whole, to give the idea of bones emptied promifcuoufly from a bag or basket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order. The bones of which the greatest mum 219 bers remained were fenlls, jawbones, teeth, the bones of the arms, thighs, legs, feet, and hands. A few ribs remained, fome vertebræ of the neck and spine, without their proceffes, and one inftance only of the bone which ferves as a bale to the vertebral column. The fculls were fo tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched. The other bones were ftronger. There were fome teeth which were judged to be fmaller than thofe of an adult; a fcull, which, on a flight view, appeared to be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on being taken out, fo as to prevent fatisfactory examination; a rib, and a fragment of the under-jaw of a perfon about half grown; another rib of an infant, and part of the jaw of a child, which had not yet cut its teeth. This laft furnishing the moft decifive proof of the burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it. It was part of the right half of the under-jaw. The proceffes, by which it was articulated to the temporal bones, were entire; and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken off, which, as nearly as I could judge, was about the place of the eye-tooth. Meafuring it with that of an adult, by placing their hinder proceffes, together, its broken end extended to the penultimate grind er of the adult. This bone was white, all the others of a fand colour. The bones of infants being foft, they probably decay fooner, which might be the caule fo few were found here. I proceeded then to make a perpendicular cut thro the body of the barrow, that ol might examine its internal: ftructure. This paffed about three feet from its center, was opened to the former furface of the earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk through and examiné its fides. At the bottom, that is, on the le Dd2** vel But on whatever occafion they may have been made, they are of confiderable notoriety among the vel of the circumjacent plain, I found bones; above thefe a few ftones, brought from a cliff a quar. ter of a mile off, and from the ri- Indians; for a party palling, about ver one-eighth of a mile off; then thirty years ago, through the part a large interval of earth, then a of the country where this barrow ftratum of bones, and fo on. At is, went through the woods directly one end of the fection were four to it, without any intructions or ftrata of bones plainly diftinguifh- inquiry; and having ftaid about it able; at the other, three; the ftra- fome time, with expreffions which ta in one part not ranging with were conftrued to be thofe of forthofe in another. The bones near- row, they returned to the high elt the furface were leaft decayed. road, which they had left about No holes were discovered in any half a dozen miles to pay this vifit, of them, as if made with bullets, and purfued their journey. There arrows, or other weapons. I con- is another barrow, much refemjectured that in this barrow might bling this, in the low grounds of have been a thoufand keletons. the South branch of Shenandoah, Every one will readily feize the where it is crofled by the road leadcircumftances above related, which ing from the Rock filh gap to Staunmilitate against the opinion that it ton. Both of thefe have, within covered the bones only of perfons thefe dozen years, been cleared of falien in battle; and againft the their trees, and put under cultivatradition allo, which would make tion are much reduced in their it the common fepulchre of a town, Height, and fpread in width, by in which the bodies were placed the plough, and will probably dif upright, and touching each other. appear in time. There is another Appearances certainly indicate that on a hill in the Blue ridge of mounit has derived both origin and tains, a few miles north of Wood's growth from the accuftomary col- Gap, which is made up of fmall lection of bones, and depofition of ftones thrown together. This has them together; that the firft col- been opened, and found to contain lection had been depofited on the human bones, as the others dọ. common furface of the earth, a There are alfo many others in ofew ftones put over it, and then a ther parts of the country. covering of earth; that the fecond had been laid on this, had covered more or lefs of it in proportion to the number of bones, and was then allo covered with earth; and fo on. The following are the particular circumftances which give it this afpect. The number of bones. 2. Their confufed pofition. $3. Their being in different ftrata. 4. The ftrata in one part having no correfpondence with thofe in another. 5. The different ftates of decay in thefe ftrata, which feem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them. From the figurative language of the Indians, as well as from the practice of those we are still acquainted with, it is evident that it was, and still continues to be a conftant cuftom among the Indians to gather up the bones of the dead, and depofit them in a particular place. Thus, when they make peace with any nation with whom they have been at war, after durying the hatchet, they take up the belt of wampum, and fay, We now gather up all the bones of those who have been flain, and bury them, &c. See all the trea Great number of Radical Languages in America. ties of peace. Befides, it is cuftomary, when any of them die at a distance from home, to bury them, and afterwards to come and take up the bones, and carry them home. At a treaty which was held at Lancafter with the fix nations, one of them died, and was buried in the woods a little distance from the town. Some time after, a party came and took up the body, feparated the flesh from the bones by boiling and fcraping them clean, and carried them to be depofited in the fepulchres of their ancestors. The operation was fo offenfive and difagreeable, that no body could come near them while they were performing it, Great question has arifen from whence came the aboriginal inhabitants of America? Difcoveries, long ago made, were fufficient to fhew that a paffage from Europe to America was always practicable, even to the imperfect navigation of ancient times. In going from Norway to Iceland, from Iceland to Groenland, from Groenland to Labrador, the first traject is the widest: and this having been practifed from the earliest times of which we have any account of that part of the earth, it is not difficult to fuppofe that the fubfequent trajects may have been fometimes paffed. Again, the late difcoveries of Cap. tain Cook, coafting from Kamfchatka to California, have proved that, if the two continents of Afia and America be feparated at all, it is only by a narrow ftreight. So that from this fide alfo inhabitants may have paffed into America: and the refemblance between the Indians of America and the Eastern inhabitams of Alia, would induce us to conjecture, that the former are the defcendants of the latter, or the latster of the former excepting in deed the Ekimaux, who, from the fame circunftance of refemblance, 221 and from identity of language, must be derived from the Groenlanders, and thefe probably from fome of the northern parts of the old continent. A knowledge of their feveral languages would be the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be produced. In fact, it is the beft proof of the affinity of nations which ever can be referred to. How many ages have elapfed fince the English, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swifs, the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes, have feparated from their common stock? Yet how many more muft elapfe before the proofs of their common origin, which exist in their several languages, will disappear? It is to be lamented then, very much to be lamented, that we have fuffered fo many of the Indian tribes already to extinguifh, without our having previoufly collected and depofited, in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they fpoke. Were vocabularies formed of all the languages spoken in North and South America, preferving their appellations of the moft common objects in nature, of those which must be present to every nation barbarous or civilized, with the inflections of their nouns and verbs, their principles of regimen and concord, and thefe depofited in all the public libraries, it would furnish opportunities to thofe fkilled in the languages of the old world to compare with thefe, now, or at any future time, and hence to conftruct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race. But imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in America, it fuffices to difcover the following remarkable fact-Arranging them under the radical ones, to which they may be palpably traced, and doing the fame by thofe of the red men of Afia, there will be found |