MONUMENTS. 275 



and licre, near u blull of sandstone, of a very picturesque 

 and fantastic outline, connnence our particular descriptions. 



" There is a group of works about eight miles east of the 

 Blue Mounds. It is on the great road from Prairie da 

 Chien, through Madison, to Lake Michigan — a road so 

 decidedly marked by nature, that I presume it has been the 

 thoroughfare, the ' trail,' the great ' war-path,' ever since the 

 region in the vicinity has been inhabited by migrating man, 

 and will continue to be his pathway until the hills and the 

 rivers exchange their places. The sand-bluff surmoiuitcd 

 with pines is here a picturesque object ; and the streamlet 

 and springs not very distant, with a few scattering trees for 

 fire, have long made it a camping ground. Mr. Taylor has 

 represented only one of the two 'effigies' which occur at 

 this point ; the other was probably so overgrown with grass 

 and small hazel-bushes as to escape his observation. Our 

 encampment was near this place ; and in the midst of some 

 discussion with regard to the tunmli, they were opened to 

 see w^hether they were stratified, and whether the black 

 mould contiimed underneath them, even with the surrounding 

 surface. No. 2 was composed of sand, without any change 

 to mark an original surface below, although it is now over- 

 grown with grass, and is covered with a thin black mould. 

 The whole of tliis descent, near the bottom of w4iich the 

 figure lies, has evidently been formed by the disintegration 

 of the soft incoherent sandstone bluff contiguous ; and at the 

 time of forming this tumulus, it was very probably destitute 

 of loam at this point, as it now is at a point still nearer the 

 bluff. A section of the embankment near the gap e.\hil)iled 

 a thin line of this loam, even with what might be supi)osed 

 to have been the original surface of the ground. Alluvial 

 stratification is positive proof that a formation is not artifi- 

 cial ; but the absence of a base of mould is not positive 



