In the neighbourhood of these morasses are found an infinite number of petrifactions, a few specimens of which I have brought with me: they are in strange and unknown figures, and appear to be generally marine productions, as various species of coral and sea-urchins were likewise found among them. Two revolutions in nature must have contributed to this effect; one in which the petrifactions were formed by a copious incrustation of calcareous matter, in a semifluid state; and a subsequent one, in which the stones have been broken to pieces, worn into a round shape, and finally deposited, an hundred miles from the sea, and many hundreds from those seas where corals are produced. Here a question of some importance arises; could this animal have been destroyed in a deluge, which must have been sudden and powerful enough to produce those great effects? And was the entire race of them thereby rendered extinct? Certain it is that they are no where to be found, nor their footsteps traced. Among the Indians of North America, from nation to nation, the tradition has spread and prevails, which relates their former existence and their sudden extirpation. I shall here give a tradition, said to be in the very terms of a Shawanee Indian, as published in Winterbotham’s History of America, which appears in an embellished dress from an English pen, but founded on a real tradition. I have questioned, through their interpreters, various and distant nations of Indians, and have known of many others, and all their accounts agree in the main story, though they vary in some of the subordinate parts. INDIAN TRADITION.