4o2 PRE-HISTORIC MOUNDS OF GRANT COUNTY, WISCONSIN. 



of the mound system anywhere observed. Circular, straight, and effigy 

 mounds extend along the crest of this ridge for a distance of nearly 

 two miles in uninterrupted succession. The mounds are so extensive 

 and numerous that my time did not admit of making even the most 

 general survey of any but the effigies. One of them is a perfectly sym- 

 metrical cross, the opposite parts corresponding exactly in length. It 

 is difficult to conceive what its object could have been, or of what it is 

 symbolical. Another, from its long tail, slender body, and small head, 

 may have been designed to represent some one of the feline species. A 

 third and fourth exhibit quite a remarkable formation in the extremities 

 of the limbs. 



Civilization has not as yet encroached on this locality, except to a slight 

 extent at the eastern end, which is beginning to be cultivated. Most of 

 the earthworks are doubtless in the condition in which they were left 

 at the time of their desertion by their builders. It is probable that in a 

 few years all the land will be under cultivation, and the mounds oblit- 

 erated. Perhaps a few dollars would be judiciously appropriated in 

 making these grounds — burial grounds, perhaps — the property of some 

 scientific society, and thus preserve them from further destruction. 



From observations of the mounds at all the foregoing localities, we 

 arrive at the following conclusions in regard to their distribution: 



1. The circular mouuds are frequently found in one locality and the 

 long mounds in another ; or if both kinds are found in the same group 

 they are usually separated. 



2. When the number of mounds does not exceed five or six, they are 

 usually of the same kind. 



3. The effigy mounds are never found unaccompanied by either long 

 or circular mounds, and are usually attended by both. 



4. All the mounds appear to have been made by scraping up the sur- 

 face soil f either from the ground immediately adjacent or from a neigh- 

 boring hill. In no place was any appearance of excavation seen. 



5. During the Champlain period the valley of the Mississippi under- 

 went a depression of at least 50 feet, during which period it was filled 

 with a stratified drift, of which occasional patches still remain along 

 the sides of the bluffs. To this there succeeded a period of elevation, 

 in which most of the valley drift was removed. The situation of some 

 of the mounds so near the present high-water mark shows that they 

 were not built until after the completion of the last elevatory movement, 

 which probably took place within the recent period. 



The mounds themselves reveal that order and government must have 

 prevailed to some extent among the race which built them, but afford 

 no clew to the time in which they lived. 



