district of Pennsylvania was struck, and from its inexhaustible mineral wealth came plenteously coal and iron to gladden many a nook and corner of his country with busy workshops and comfortable homes. Politically, he was a strict but not an ultra Democrat. In 1842 and 1843 he was elected to the State Legislature, his object being to secure, if possible, the creation of a new county out of that part of Northampton County lying north of the Blue Mountains. In this he succeeded, and in 1843 the County of Carbon was organized. He was elected one of the two first associate judges, from which he derived his title of Judge Packer. Although these associate judges generally were useless ornaments and have been discontinued in many counties in Pennsylvania, still Judge Packer proved himself of much service to his county in his judicial position, for it appears that he frequently held court and tried causes in the absence of the president judge. In 1852 he was elected to the National Congress as a Democrat, and again in 1854. He was not a noisy member, but his integrity and good judgment gave him a quiet influence which made him a useful member to his constituents. Two offices of much higher dignity, if not necessarily of more importance to his community-those of Governor of Pennsylvania and President of the United States-were afterward brought within the reach of his ambition, if not of his achievements, by the faith which the people of Pennsylvania gradually learned to repose in his sagacity, honesty and liberality. In July, 1868, during the contest in New York over the Democratic nomination for President, which was finally decided in favor of Horatio Seymour and against Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Packer's name was brought forward by the Pennsylvania delegation as a compromise candidate. Through fourteen ballots Pennsylvania voted solidly for him. On the fifteenth ballot his name was withdrawn, and the delegation then voted for General Hancock, and subsequently for Governor Seymour. In 1869 Judge Packer was nominated by the Pennsylvania Democratic Convention for Governor. This nomination was not desired by him; the State was overwhelmingly Republican, and his tastes and interests were not in politics. The unsought honor was pressed upon him and finally accepted. He did not throw himself and his means of influence into the canvass. Asa Packer might have been a statesman, never a politician. His popularity throughout the State was alone almost sufficient to defeat the twenty-five thousand Republican majority which General Grant had the year before over Governor Seymour, for Judge Packer was declared defeated by only four thousand five hundred. Soon after the announcement of the vote, many even of his political enemies published the fact that he had been "counted out." After the canvass of 1869 Judge Packer took no active part in politics, although always being interested in the success of the Democratic party. Judge Packer died on the 17th day of May, 1879. He is buried in the little hillside cemetery at Mauch Chunk in the Lehigh Valley. An unostentatious marble shaft marks his last resting-place. The great monument of his many exceptional qualities is the Lehigh University, named not after but by him, with his usual modesty. The expressed desire of Judge Packer, as well as the wording of the charter, render it impossible to ever change the name of the institution; however, the principal building of the University (and it is a model of academic architecture) has been, since his death, named after him "Packer Hall." The total amount Judge Packer gave from time to time to this University is about two and a half million dollars. By the probable increase through judicious investments, and by the large share of the estate which will eventually come to the University on the expiration of the various trusts created by Judge Packer's last will and testament, it will be one of VOL. XIII.-No. 6.-36 the wealthiest institutions of learning in this country. Because of its present wealth, and the probability of an increase, of its central situation, and freedom from all prejudices which are gathered around some of our older colleges, this institution may be the commencement of the first true American University. The buildings of the University are situated in a well regulated park of some twenty acres. The original forest trees, which witnessed the early Moravian struggles and compromises with the savage, form now the collegiate shades of Lehigh, from whose doors no deserving youth is ever repulsed. Asa Packer was indeed "a noble of Nature's own creating." Davis Brodhead ANTIQUITIES IN THE WESTERN STATES There can be no more fascinating field of research, nor one which offers a wider scope for conjecture, than that which the antiquarian finds in his studies among the ruins and relics of a peculiar people who centuries ago-ages before the red man came-inhabited this country. These researches and discoveries, while they throw no light upon the subject of the origin or character of this people, have revealed enough to prove beyond a doubt that a race existed upon this continent who possessed to a remarkable degree the knowledge of arts and sciences now unpracticed and unknown. As a writer once said in connection with this subject: "If it is pleasing as well as useful to learn the history of one's country, to feel a rising interest as its beginnings are unfolded, and its sufferings, its wars, its strug gles, and its victories delineated, why may it not also be agreeable to read the story of its antiquities, which are of a graver and more majestic character than anything connected with modern history." It has been a favorite theory with some that the first inhabitants who peopled America came hither by land at a period when it was united with Asia, Europe and Africa, a bond of union which was ruptured by the force of earthquakes and upheavals by internal commotions, thus severed into distinct continents; so that those animals which had not passed over before this great physical disturbance and rupture were excluded, while the men could resort to the use of boats. Whatever may have been the means of reaching this country, from whatever point, or at what period can only be conjectured, but that the emigrants were a partially civilized and an agricultural nation, possibly equal in number to the present, cannot be successfully disproven. One of the most extensive of the ancient works in the West, was the fort, town or fortification on the Muskingum River in Ohio. Its site was on an elevated plain, above the present bank of that river, about half a mile from its junction with the Ohio. As described by a writer in a MS. written about 1830, now held by a gentleman in Michigan, it consisted of walls and mounds of earth, in direct lines and in square and circular forms, and was about four hundred rods in circumference, so situated as to be nearly surrounded by two small brooks running into the Muskingum. The largest square fort, by many called the town, contained forty acres, encompassed by a wall of earth, |