116 



ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



each sixty feet square and eight feet high. The terraces are forty feet broad, four 

 high, and one liundred and twenty-five and seventy-five feet long respectively. 



The character and dimensions of the remaining mounds are sufficiently indicated 

 in the plan. There is however another singular structure connected with the 

 group, which deserves special notice. It consists of a terrace extending due 

 west from the principal mound above described, parallel to the bayou. It is 

 elevated three feet above the general level of the plain, and is seventy-five feet 

 wide by two thousand seven hundred feet in length. Upon either side of this 

 terrace, and parallel to it, are broad excavations, at present about three feet deep. 

 These excavations are not far from two thousand feet long, by from one hundred 

 and fifty to three hundred feet wide. There are no other perceptible excavations 

 in the vicinity; and it is reasonable to conclude that most, if not all of the material 

 for the construction of the works was taken from these points. 



The ground occupied by these remains is for the most part under cultivation. 

 It was originally covered with a heavy growth of the black walnut, a species of 

 timber scarcely known on the alluvial lands of the Mississippi, so far south. It 

 was first cleared by a Mr. Harper, in 1827. Broken pottery is found in abundance 

 around these monuments; and fragments of hmiian bones, much decomposed, arc 

 observed intermixed with the earth. Upon the mounds, in many places, the earth 

 is much burned. There are no other remains of magnitude in the immediate 

 vicinity. 



The works here represented, 

 Fig. 22, are situated in Bolivar 

 county, Mississippi, near Wil- 

 liams's bayou in the Choctaw 

 bend, one mile and a half from 

 the Mississippi river. They 

 consist of two truncated pyra- 

 midal structures of the charac- 

 ter already described, accom- 

 panied by two small conical 

 mounds, the whole surrounded 

 by a circular embankment of 

 earth, without a ditch, two 

 thousand three hundred feet 

 in circumference, and tour feet 

 high. A gateway opens into 

 the enclosure from the east. 

 Mound A is one hundred and 

 fifty feet square at the base, sev- 

 enty-five feet scjiiare on top, and twenty feet high, with a graded ascent from the 

 (!ast. B is one hundred and thirty-five feet square at base, fifty feet at top, and 

 fifteen feet high. The ascent in this instance is from the north. The two small 

 coniciil iiKHiiuis are id)Out thirty feet in diameter, jind five feet high. Tin; sides 

 iif llic |i\ iiMni<liil slnicdnc- iUt not vary two dcgni's fniin (In- cardinal points 



Flo. 



