m'wHORTER ANTIQUITIES OF ILLINOIS. 351 



AJTCIEXT MOUXDS OF MEI11;ER COUNTY. ILLINOIS. 

 By Tyler McWiiortkh, of Aledo, III. 



It may be approximately estimated that there are more than a thou- 

 sand mounds in this county, yet persons who have not directed tlieir 

 attention to the subject woukl not snppose half that number to exist. 

 These mounds are generally not such as to attract very special observa- 

 tion, not being of the larger size, the principal groups are very much 

 flattened down by time, and seem to rehite to a more remote antiquity 

 than such as are more conspicuous. 



These mounds are all located iu the portion of the county bordering 

 on the Mississippi Eiver. This fact, that tlic western mounds are univer- 

 sally found on lands adjoining the rivers, suggests the inference that 

 the race who erected them procured their subsistence mainly from the 

 water, or that the bottom-lands of the rivers constituted their principal 

 hunting-grounds. 



The largest group of mounds in this county is found in Eliza Town- 

 ship (township 15 north, range 5 west,) on high timbered land, about a 

 mile or so back of the Mississippi bluffs. In this group may be found 

 over two hundred mounds within the distance of a mile. This group 

 seems to be of great antiquity, and is quite flattened down by the ele- 

 ments — only rising a few feet above the general level. Probably succes- 

 sive forests have grown and passed away siuce they were constructed. 

 Only a few have been opened, and these revealed only beds of ashes 

 and a few stones. But what seems strange, traces of ashes are oftfin 

 found mixed with the earth of which the mounds are composed. 



In the immediate vicinity are also found obscure lines of old embank- 

 ments that seem to relate to the same age as the mounds. 



On the bottom-lands of the Mississippi, not far from the foot of the 

 bluff, in the same township, are found a few mounds of a very distinct 

 character. They rise up with quite an abrupt elevation, and are mani- 

 festly of a much more recent date. Presuming that the more ancient 

 mounds, in the high timbered lands, at some former time had the same 

 abrujit elevation as these, it manifestly must have required many years 

 to reduce them by atmospheric action to their present flattened condi- 

 tion. From this apparent difference in the antiquity of the mounds, it is 

 evident that the race or races who erected them continued to inhabit 

 this country for a considerable length of time. In these more recent 

 mounds human bones have been found with the usual accomi)animent of 

 ashes and stones. Also, in one of them a stick of wood was found, 

 about eight inches in diameter, in a horizontal situation, a little to one 

 side of the center of the mound; it was in quite a sound condition. 



As no depressions of ground are ever found in the immediate vicinity 

 of mounds, it is often difficult to conjecture where the earth was ob- 

 tained of which they were constructed; but there is a circumstance 

 in connection with the more recent mounds that seems to have a bearing 



