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THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 585 
a chief died, these people demolished the cabin in which he had lived, 
and raised a new mound, upon which they placed the dwelling of his 
successor, as it was not customary for a chief to lodge in a house that 
had been previously oceupied.* 
Whether the Natchez erected the immense works found on the Wash- 
ita River, near the outlet of Lake Catahoula, is a point about which 
opinions may well differ. That they took refuge in the immediate 
neighborhood of these works, if not on their very site, after the de- 
struction of their village on the Mississippi, and ‘“ built a fort,” accord- 
ing to Du Pratz, or “fortified themselves,” as Charlevoix states, is be- 
yond question; but Judge Force,t who has examined into the matter 
very thoroughly, is of the opinion that they were not permitted to hold 
this position long enough to have constructed works of the size of those 
found here. In this he is believed to be correct, though of course it 
would all depend upon the number of those who had sought refuge on 
this spot, and the earnestness with which they worked. As some in- 
dication of the time necessary to the erection of works of this charac- 
ter, the following fact, for which I am indebted to Lieut. Commander 
A. R. MeNair, U. S. Navy, will be of interest. According to that gen- 
tleman, upon one occasion in 1863, when coaling at the island of St. 
Thomas, 150 negro laborers easily brought on board of the Powhatan, 
in twelve hours, 100 tons of coal, using only baskets for that purpose. 
Allowing 40 cubie feet to the ton, this would give a cube of coal, measur- 
ing 20 x 20 x 10 feet, moved in one day by 150 men; and with this as 
the basis for a calculation, it will be seen that the length of time abso- 
lutely necessary to the construction of these works 1s not so great as 
might be supposed.t However, this is a point upon which if is need- 
*Father Le Petit, quoted in //ist. Coll. Louisiana, part 111, note to p. 142. 
tSome considerations on the Mound-builders, p. 77, and note B: Pamphlet, 1873. 
Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana, p. 350, speaking of the size of these works, says: 
“Not less than five remarkable mounts are situated near the junction of the Wasbhita, 
Acatahoula, and Tenza, in an alluvial soil. They are all inclosed in an enbankment 
or wall of earth, at this time 10 feet high, which contains about 200 acres of land. 
Four of these mounts are nearly of equal dimensions, about 20 feet high, 100 broad, 
and 300 long. The fifth seems to have been designed for a tower or turret; the base 
of it covers an acre of ground; it rises by two stages or steps; its circumference 
gradually diminishes as it ascends; its summit is crowned by a flattened cone. By 
admeasurement, the height of this tower is found to be 80 feet. 
tStrongly confirmatory of this view is the following extract from Isaac McCoy’s 
History of the Baptist Indian Missions, etc., p. 27: “A little reflection will show 
that the amount of labour required in their erection did not surpass the common in- 
dustry of the savages. Suppose a mound to be 40 feet in diameter at its base, and 
to rise by steps, 1 foot in height and a foot and a half in depth, to the height of 13 feet, 
with a level surface on the summit4 feet in diameter. It would contain about 6,233 
cubic feet of earth, or a fraction less than 231 cubie yards. To deposite on the mound 
1 cubic yard of earth would be a moderate day’s labour for 1 man. Therefore, the 
erection of the mound under consideration would employ 231 persons one day only. 
Among the Indians, the women would perform as much of this kind of work as the 
men, or perhaps more, and more than twice this number of persons able to labour 
