Identifier: americanantiquit00p (find matches)
Title: American antiquities and discoveries in the West:
Year: 1838 (1830s)
Authors: Priest, Josiah, 1788-1851
Subjects: Indians Indians of North America
Publisher: Albany, Printed by Hoffman & White
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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neral dismay. This naturally led to in-quiry, and large rewards were offered for the discovery of theperpetrators of such unparalleled crimes. It soon came out thatWilson, with an organized party of forty-five men,was the causeof such waste of blood and treasure; that he had a station atHurricane island, to arrest every boat that passed by the mouthof the cavern, and that he had agents at Natchez and New Or-leans, of presumed respectability, who converted his assignmentsinto cash, though they knew the goods to be stolen, or obtainedby the commission of murder. The publicity of Wilsons transactions soon broke up his party;some dispersed, others were taken prisoners, and he himself waskilled by one of his associates, who was tempted by the rewardoffered for the head of the captain of the gang. This cavern measures about twelve rods in length, and five inwidth; its entrance presents a width of eighty feet at its base, andtwenty-five feet high. The interior walls are smooth rock. The j.10
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146 AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES floor is very remarkable, being level through the whole length ofits centre, the sides rising in stony grades, in the manner of seat&in the pit of a theatre. On a diligent scrutiny of the walls, it isplainly discerned that the ancient inhabitants at a very remote-period, had made use of the cave as a house of deliberation andcouncil. The walls bear many hieroglyphics, well executed, andsome of them represent animals, which have no resemblance toany now known to natural history. This cavern is a great natural curiosity, as it is connected withanother, still more gloomy, which is situated exactly above, uni-ted by an aperture of about fourteen feet; which, to ascend, islike passing up a chimney, while the mountain is yet far above*Not long after the dispersion and arrest of the robbers, who hadinfested it, in the upper vault were found the skeletons of aboutsixty persons, who had been murdered by the gang of Wilson, aswas supposed. But the tokens of antiquit

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