Feather stonhaugWs Geological Report. 131 



Pepin, I found myself on an extensive and beautifully smooth 

 prairie. At a distance not exceeding two miles, I saw 

 some unusual elevations to the south ; and, hoping I had had 

 the good fortune to find, at length, the true place, I walked to 

 them, and, on reaching them, was at once persuaded that I had 

 found the locality described by Carver, and which was suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to justify the description he had given of it. 

 The elevation had the appearance of an ancient military work 

 in ruins ; externally there was the appearance of a ditch, in 

 places filled up with the blowing sand, and having a slope 

 coming down from what might be supposed the walls of the 

 work to the ditch, of about twenty yards. Inside was a great 

 cavity, with irregular salient angles ; and at three different 

 parts Were the more regular remains of something like bas- 

 tions ; the cavity was seventy yards in diameter, N. W. and 

 S. E., including the ruins of several terraces ; the circumfer- 

 ence of this singular place, including the angles, was four 

 hundred and twenty-four yards. Seven hundred yards S. S. 

 E. of this was another, resembling it in form and size ; and at 

 an equal distance, E. S. E. from this last, was a larger one, 

 eleven hundred yards round, with similar remains of bastions ; 

 this cavity would easily contain one thousand people ; its 

 walls, if the word may be applied to them, are lofty, and there 

 is a deep ditch on the south side. In the area to the south I 

 counted six more of these elevations, each having a rude 

 resemblance to the other, with what also appeared to be a line 

 of defence, connecting these works with each other. At the 

 northern end of this singular assemblage of elevations, every 

 thing bears the appearance of rude artificial construction ; at 

 the southern end, however, and not far from the river, the 

 works pass gradually into an irregular surface, a confused 

 intermixing of cavities and knolls, that might be satisfactorily 

 attributed to the blowing of sand.* There is a growth of oak 

 timber, as Carver observes, upon all this part of the elevations. 



* It is a sand prairie, covered with a foot or two of vegetable matter. 



9* 



