Ancient Remains, Animal Mounds, #•<?. in Wisconsin. 25 



inscribe, with red paint, the valor or worth of the deceased, in 

 rude hieroglyphic characters. 



Plate V. 



■ 

 I 



Fig. 1 represents a group of earth-works, which I have presumed 

 to designate as a citadel; it is situated upon section two, township 

 eight, near the north bank of the Wisconsin River, one and a 

 half miles west of the fourth principal meridian, in the county 

 of Richland. The citadel is singularly planned ; the walls com- 

 prise embankments of various forms, so arranged as to leave sev- 

 eral openings or sally ports, guarded, however, by mounds in the 

 interior ; it occupies a prominent level space of about half an 

 acre, the ground to the north, south, and westward, without the 

 embankments for some yards, having a gradual descent, and to 

 the eastward spreading into a beautiful plateau, which gives to 

 the whole structure the imposing appearance of having been con- 

 structed as a place of refuge ; upon the plateau, as well as to the 



t 



southward, are numerous other embankments of various forms, 

 the dimensions of some of which, they being disconnected, I did 

 not take ; to the westward, within four hundred yards, viewing 

 them from the large or central mound in the citadel, may be seen 

 at least a hundred similar to those forming the outlines of the 

 citadel. The elevation of these embankments, generally, is no 

 more than thirty inches, and of the lesser mounds twenty inches, 



while the altitude of the large mound, overlooking the whole 



group, is ten feet. The original sod, upon which the walls of 

 the citadel rest, as well as the surface of the ground adjacent to 

 many of them, does not appear as though it was used in con- 

 structing them. I made no excavations in these embankments, 

 but from an examination of the central mound in the citadel, I 

 have been led to the conclusion that they are similarly construct- 



* 



ed. I am not borne out in this conclusion with regard to the 

 construction of all the outer walls of the citadel ; around those 



forming the east and northeast sides, excavations, from whence 



earth had been removed, are plainly indicated, so that the mate- 

 rial, of which this portion of the work is constructed, was evi- 

 dently obtained immediately adjacent. Notwithstanding the 

 rank growth of vegetation upon all these works, and their hav- 

 ing, in all probability, mouldered down from the original height 



Vol. xliv, No. l.—Oct.-Dec. 1842. 4 * 



