They are invariably found in a level country, or in one which is nearly so; and the soil is generally, if not always, more moist than that which is uneven and hilly. Would not the leaves, where the land is dry, burn over with as great facility, or even with greater facility, than the grass would where the land is wet? Would there not be more wild game where they could find their food in plenty, such as acorns and hickory nuts, on which they feed in winter, than on land where no food, except dry grass and weeds, were to be found? It is well known that these prairies and barrens could not be burnt over when the vegetable productions which cover them were growing. At the only season when it is possible to burn them, that is in winter, to what kind of regions do the wild animals resort? Is it not to the thick woods? Every hunter will answer in the affirmative. For the space of twenty-five years, the writer of this lived in the vicinity of Indians, and from information on which he relies, as well as from his own actual observation, he confidently avers that the Indians neither are, nor ever were, in the habit of firing the woods in order to take game. Erroneous information first propagated such an opinion, and blind credulity has extended it down to us. Another opinion, equally groundless, prevails to a considerable extent; and that is, that these prairies have all been heretofore cultivated by the aborigines, and that the grass having overspread these plains, prevented the growth of trees on them. The Indians, it is to be presumed, never cultivated any other grain than maize, or Indian corn, and yet we see few or no corn-hills in any part of this country. In the western part of New-York, before it was settled by its present inhabitants, thousands and thousands of acres were to be seen, where the trees were as large as any in the forest, and yet the rows of corn-hills were plainly discernible. I refer in a particular manner to what is now called Cayuga county. There the growth of grass had not prevented the growth of trees, nor did it here. We know that some of these prairies were cultivated by the Indians, but never to any very considerable extent. This country never was thickly settled by Indians, like the shores of the Atlantic and the banks of the rivers running into it. No, it was the ancestors of the Peruvians and the Mexicans who lived here in great numbers, before they migrated to South America. The question then recurs, by what powerful means were these prairies and barrens formed?