Featherstonhaugh^s 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 

 w 7 alls, 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. 



