424 ANTHROPOLOGY. 



cleared, twenty-five years ago, and are of very large size. I liave shown 

 on the plan several whose position on the mounds would indicate that 

 the work was finished before they took root upon them. These trees 

 are elm and bass-wood, and from 1£ to 2 feet in diameter. 



The wood land, except an occasional culling for fire- wood, has not 

 been touched since the country was settled, and no difference can be 

 distinguished between the growth upon the mounds and that elsewhere. 



The " grass-meadow," though now dry and used for pasturage, was, 

 when the farm was settled, impassable, but by opening it more freely to 

 the light and air, and on account of the subsidence of the lake, it has 

 now become dry land. There seems to be no doubt that at a compara- 

 tively recent date this tract and the other slouglis around the lake were 

 submerged and formed portions of the main body of water. This fact 

 may account in some degree for the peculiar arrangement of the mounds. 

 The rapidity with which the shallow portions of protected bays and 

 small bodies of water in this section become land is very wonderful. 

 The pioneer plant is the wild rice, growing in almost impenetrable 

 masses, in from 1 to 3 feet of water. Other aquatic plants and mosses 

 follow, which afford a foothold for sedge and wild grass, while the 

 gradual fall of the water, owing to continued winters without heavy 

 snows, assists in hastening the process. I myself this season went dry- 

 shod across a meadow where seven or eight years ago a boat was neces- 

 sary. A short distance to the north of these mounds, but beyond the 

 limits of the map, are sloughs, which extend to the "Upper Lake," so 

 the two sheets of water, which, measured on an east and west line, are 

 now about a mile apart, probably were once separated by a much nar- 

 rower neck of high land. 



These mounds, excepting the scattering ones south of the "grass- 

 meadow," are located about on the height of land and on the brow of 

 the slope running down to the low land inclosed within their circle. 

 Those within the woodland are not generally of much height, as will be 

 seen by the figures on the plan, and as they are unprotected by turf or 

 grass, every severe rain assists in washing them down, and must finally 

 obliterate them, as the last twenty-five years has plainly shown. 



The necessary cultivation of the orchards is also destroying these 

 interesting remains of some former race, although the owner of the farm 

 takes much pride in them, and does all he can to preserve them. 



The embankment which runs parallel with the lake shore once ex- 

 tended nearly across the orchard south of the house, but now all trace 

 of it is lost. It is, in section, a ridge, sloping equally on either side, and 

 where best preserved is about 25 feet wide and L'.} feet high. 



A little mound in the north orchard has been opened. At the depth 

 of ~>\ feet, somewhat below the original surface of the ground, were 

 found between thirty and thirty-live skulls, arranged in a circle of from 

 5 to (! feet in diameter, and embedded in and covered with sand, evi- 

 dently brought from the lake shore, as the soil is a clay loam. These 



