﻿NO. 7 



SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I926 



257 



Beyond this is another enclosure five hundred feet long, forming 

 a fourth of a circle, one end on the river bluff, the other end at the 

 bank of a ravine. Both ends are shortened by the banks caving in. 

 There is a wide, deep moat at the outer side.- The space enclosed is 

 about four acres. Within the wall is a flat-topped mound six feet 

 high and one hundred feet across. 



Between these two embankments are lodge sites ; low, circular em- 

 bankments with a shallow exterior ditch from which the earth was 

 taken to Iniild them. These do not seem to be a part of the main 

 works, but to pertain to a different period or a different people. 



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Fig. 245. — Mound inside of enclosure. Marksville. 



Over a space of nearly a fourth of a mile to the east of the last 

 mentioned enclosure no structures were erected ; beyond this area, 

 close to the margin of the bluff, are six mounds of the so-called 

 " conical " form. Finally, in the bottom, on land subject to overflow, 

 are four large quadrangular, flat-topped mounds from three to thir- 

 teen feet high, and three small, low, ordinary mounds, all enclosing a 

 rectangular space of two acres. The three small mounds are on the 

 edge of a slough. 



It was a natural supposition that such conditions would be favor- 

 able for research, that works of such magnitude would repay inves- 

 tigation. 



Six of the mounds were carefully excavated to an extent that 

 disclosed all they had to reveal. Two, the smallest of those opened, 



