MONUMENTS OF THE SOUTHERN S T A 'I' E S . n5 



PLATE XXXIX. 



ANCIENT MONUMENTS, MADISON PARISH, LOUISIANA. 



The accompanying plans are from original surveys made by James Hough, 

 Esq., of Hamilton, Ohio, for Mr. McBride, and may, it is believed, be relied 

 upon as entirely accurate, in every essential respect.* 



The group here presented is situated upon the right bank of Walnut Bayou, in 

 Madison Parish, Louisiana, seven miles from the Mississippi river. It consists of 

 seven large and regular mounds, and a graded or elevated road-way half amile 

 in length. The plan exhibits the relative positions of the remains and their 

 predominating features, and obviates the necessity of a particular description, 

 which at best would be intricate and obscure. 



The largest mound of the group. A, is distant two hundred and fifty yards 

 south from the bayou, which here extends in a direction nearly east and west. 

 The principal structure is two hundred and twenty-five feet long, by one hun- 

 dred and sixty-five feet broad at the base, and thirty feet in height. The 

 summit is level, presenting an area of one hundred and twenty feet long, by seventy- 

 five broad. On the side next the bayou towards the north, at the height of ten feet, 

 is a terrace ten feet wide and extending the entire length of the mound. On the 

 south side is a road-way twenty feet wide, commencing at a point sixty feet from 

 the base of the mound, and leading with a regular grade to its top. At either end 

 of the mound is an inclined platform or apron, seventy-five feet long by sixty wide. 

 These are six feet in elevation at the point joining the mound, but decline gradually 

 to three feet at the outer ends, where they terminate abruptly. 



B is a mound similar to the one just described, but less in size. It is one hundred 

 and eighty feet long, one hundred and twenty broad, and fifteen high. The level 

 area on the top is one hundred and twenty feet long and sixty wide. A graded 

 road leads to its summit from the north. At the east end is an inclined platform, 

 seventy feet long by sixty broad, eight feet high where it joins the mound, and 

 sloping to five feet at its outer extremity. At the west end is a similar elevation 

 one hundred and twenty feet long by sixty broad. 



C is a singular work, consisting of a central mound ninety-six feet square at the 

 base, and ten feet high, with a level area forty-eight feet square on the top. Con- 

 nected by elevated terraces with this mound, are two others of similar construction. 



* The perfect regularity which the plans exhibit, it will readily be understood, does not actually exist. 

 The angles of all these structures are more or less rounded. The predominant features, nevertheless, — 

 the terraces, platforms, and graded ways, — -are truly represented. All of these works seem to have been 

 originally moulded with the utmost care, and possessed the higliest degree of regularity of which the 

 materials were capable. They were undoubtedly faced with turf, which seems better than solid masonry 

 to resist the ravages of time and the elements. 



