356 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



field. Where it is best preserved in the timbered land, its height 

 was found to be from three to five feet, and fifteen feet wide at 

 the base.* In the centre of the western side of the enclosure and 

 close to the wall, as near as could be judged, is a mound of 

 oblong shape, three hundred feet in length at the base, and at its 

 northern end one hundred feet wide, and twenty feet high at the 

 present time. The top of it slopes gradually to the south, and 

 although the plow has passed up and down its sides for sixty years, 

 still on its eastern side may be distinctly seen the evidences of a 

 graded way to its summit, which marks it as a temple mound. 

 Close to its northeastern side, where the mound is widest, is a 

 deep depression in the field, about ten feet in diameter. Mr. 

 Wm. M. Murphy, a farmer who has long resided in the neighbor- 

 hood, told me that when he first saw it he could not get in and 

 out of it without a ladder, and that it had since been nearly filled 

 up by the tillers of the soil with stumps, logs and earth. It is con- 

 jectured to have been a well. The wells of this region are usually 

 sunk to the depth of twenty-five feet. In the centre of the enclo- 

 sure stands a circular mound seventy-five feet in diameter, and 

 also twenty feet high, which upon examination disclosed nothing 

 but broken pottery. It belongs to that class usually termed resi- 

 dence mounds. The view from its summit towards the west and 

 south commands a prospect several miles in extent ; on the north 

 the view is cut off by a heavy growth of timber, and on the east 

 by the cypress swamp. In a direct line with the two mounds 

 thus described, partly upon the edge of the cultivated field and 

 partly upon the declivity which descends towards the swamp, in 

 the midst of a large group of smaller works, stands a large burial 

 mound, about fifteen feet high and one hundred feet in diameter. 

 Its original height could only be conjectured, as it has long been 

 occupied as a residence site by the present inhabitants. The ruins 

 of a log house are still standing upon its summit. It has been the 

 sepulchre of many hundreds, perhaps a thousand individuals. 

 The manner of interment, as far as my own observations extenel- 

 ed, was to place the corpse upon the back with the head towards 

 the centre of the mound. The number of articles of pottery 



* It will readily be perceived that absolute accuracy of measurement would be impossi- 

 ble, where the ground has been so much disturbed by cultivation. In the dimensions stated 

 above, and those which follow, the figures given above are as close estimates as was possi- 

 ble under the circumstances to make. 



