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Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 185 strably artificial, he would smile; but credulity the most sanguine would fail to credit the assertion. But when, with jealous eye, slowly and cautiously, and with measured footsteps, he has circled its base; when he has surveyed its slopes and declivities from every position, and has [ 160] remarked the peculiar uniformity of its structure and the mathematical exactitude of its outline; when he has ascended to its summit, and looked round upon the piles of a similar character by which it is surrounded; when he has taken into consideration its situation upon a river- bottom of nature decidedly diluvial, and, of consequence, utterly incompatible with the natural origin of such elevations; when he has examined the soil of which it is composed, and has discovered it to be uniformly, throughout the entire mass, of the same mellow and friable species as that of the prairie at its base; and when he has listened with scrutiny to the facts which an examination of its depths has thrown to light of its nature and its contents, he is compelled, however reluctantly, yet without a doubt, to declare that the gigantic pile is incontestibly the WORKMANSHIP OF MAN'S HAND. But, with such an admission, what is the crowd of reflections which throng and startle the mind? What a series of unanswerable inquiries succeed! When was this stupendous earth- heap reared up from the plain ? By what race of beings was the vast undertaking accomplished ? What was its purpose? What changes in its form and magnitude have taken place? What vicissitudes and revolutions have, in the lapse of centuries, rolled like successive waves over the plains at its base? As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for some tradition, some time- stained chronicle, some age- worn record, even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. But [ 161] our research is hopeless. The present race of aborigines can |