JEFFERSON COLLEGE.

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sent year, C. B. Dubuisson, Esq. of Philadelphia, one of these professors, was unanimously elected president, and was inaugurated on the 6th of July, 1835. Under the new president, who is a finished. scholar and a very amiable and energetic man, the college has become very flourishing, and is rapidly advancing to permanent literary distinction. Professor Symmes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, and an able scholar, is professor of mathematics. Under these two gentlemen, and the professor in the primary department, planters may now have their sons as well educated as at the north.

They are beginning to think so. But if they would more generally adopt the opinion, that their sons can be educated at the south by northern professors as well as at the north, the literary institutions of this country would not have to struggle for existence, scarcely able to rise above the rank of an academy. In connexion with the disinclination which southerners have to educating their sons at home, and their disposition to depreciate their native institutions, there exists another cause, with a direct tendency to check their advancement. It is the system of education pursued in their colleges, which, in a great degree, is the result of necessity. Until within a few years, there have been no good preparatory schools in this state, where youth could fit themselves for admission into college. Now, to form the lowest class in a college, it is necessary that those who are to compose it-however large or small their number-should have gone through a prescribed series of preparatory studies. But

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DEFECTIVE ORGANIZATION.

where there has been no opportunity for pursuing this preparatory course, as here in the south-west, the college must open its doors to unprepared youth, to the great injury of its classes, or, in the absence of other means, provide measures for fitting them for admission. These measures all colleges here are at present taking, by the establishment of primary departments; until the pupils of these departments are qualified for promotion, the college classes remain vacant; and thus, though nominally a college, the institution is, for the time being, an academy, or preparatory school for itself. This is the present state of the colleges here, and none of them have advanced so far as to open the junior class. Jefferson College indeed has been, with the exception of its condition under military discipline a few years since, no more than a preparatory department since its organization. It is now rising into the dignity of a college, although the quadrennial course, which in our notions is inseparable from a collegiate education, is not intended by the board to form a part of their system. The method adopted in the University of Virginia, in relation to the routine of studies and succession of classes, will be partially pursued. In the present state of things, this is no doubt the preferable course to follow; but it is to be feared that the college will never be eminent or very permanent, until established on the good old basis of our northern institutions. If this system were adopted, and a professor appointed to fill the chair in each department of science, whether there were students or not-and the freshman

class opened, even by the admission of a single scholar-the institution, with its immense fund, would stand upon an immovable foundation. The classes would increase every year in size, and at the end of the fifth series, or in twenty years, a class of seniors would receive their degrees, whom even aristocratic Harvard would not disdain to acknowledge as her foster children.

XLI.

Indian mounds-Their origin and object-Tumuli near Natchez -Skulls and other remains-Visit to the fortifications or mounds at Seltzertown-Appearance and description of the mounds-Their age-Reflections-History of the Natchez.

THE Indian mounds, those gigantic mausolea of unhistoried nations, will ever present a subject of absorbing interest to the reflecting mind. Elevating their green summits amid the great forests of the west-mysterious links of the unknown past-they will stand imperishable through time, encircled by the cities and palaces of men, silent but impressive monitors of their grasping ambition. These sepulchres are scattered every where throughout the valley of the Mississippi-itself a mighty cemetery of mighty tombs. In the pathless forests, and on the banks of the rivers of the south-west, they are still more thickly strewed than in the north valley, in

dicating a denser population. It was recently suggested to me, by a gentleman of antiquarian tastes, that the Indians of the southern valley, by whom these mounds were constructed, and who were a mild and inoffensive people, far advanced in civilization, were, in remote ages, invaded by a horde of northern tribes from the Atlantic shores-as were the effeminate states of southern Europe by the Goths and Vandals-who drove out the original possessors, and took possession of their delightful country; while the fugitive inhabitants crossed the Mississippi, and, moving to the west and south, laid the foundation of the empire of Mexico. This theory is not improbable, and it is supported by many established facts. It is certain that the rude tribes found in this country, by De Soto and his followers, remnants of which still exist, cannot be identified with those by whom these tumuli were erected. Among them there exists not even a tradition of the formation of these mounds.

There have been many curious hypotheses advanced in reference to their object. Some have supposed that they were constructed, after a great battle, of the numerous bodies of the slain; others, that they were the customary burial-places of the Indians, gradually accumulating in a series of years, until, terminating in a cone, they were covered with earth, and deserted for new cemeteries, to be in like manner abandoned in their turn. Others, by a train of analogous reasoning, founded upon the prevailing custom of other aboriginal tribes, have supposed them to be fortifications; and others again believe

them temples; or, like the pyramids of Egypt, structures connected with the mysteries of the religion of their builders. But their true origin, like that of their grander prototypes on the plains of Memphis, must for ever be lost in conjecture.

In the vicinity of Natchez, and within three hours' ride of the city, in various directions, are twelve or fifteen of these mounds. Some of them have been partially excavated; and besides many vessels, weapons of war, and ordinary human remains, skeletons of men of a large size have been found in them. On the estate of a gentleman two miles from Natchez, and in the loveliest vale in this region, there are three, situated equidistant from each other, along the bank of the St. Catharine. One of these was recently excavated by Dr. Powell, a distinguished phrenologist of the west; from which he obtained several earthen vessels, neatly made, various fragments, and besides other bones, three perfect skulls-one the most beautiful head I ever beheld, of a young Choctaw girl; another, the skull of a man of the same tribe; and the third, a massive and remarkably formed skull of a Natchez. I have since examined two of these mounds, but was not able to add any thing important to the discoveries of Dr. Powell. The perfect decomposition which has taken place in one of them, would indicate a much greater age than is generally attributed to them. I laid bare a perpendicular face of this mound, ten feet square, and the spade struck but one hard substance, which proved to be the lower jaw, containing seven or eight teeth, of some