PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 299 



fifty per cent of the earthworks of all types in Iowa have been obliterated, 

 and this percentage is increased every year. 



Following ithe circular mounds in numbers are the long straight em- 

 bankments usually following the crest of divides between ravines. These 

 are all the way from twenty-five to several hundred feet in length, from 

 twenty to twenty-five feet in width, and one to three feet in (height. What 

 they were built for we can only conjecture we certainly don't know 

 only this, it is certain that they are not fortifications as sonne think them 

 to be. 



The real fortifications or fortified camps, of which there are, or were, a 

 number in the valley of the Upper Iowa or Oneota river, are always en- 

 closures, an embankment of earth entirely surrounding an acre or more of 

 land. 



Another very interesting type is the effigy mound, heaping of earth to 

 represent a bird or animal in relief. 



Some of these are so well done that it is quite possMe to say that they 

 were intended to represent a wild goose, a night hawk, or a buffalo. Others 

 we are not quite so certain of, but we have given to particular forms the 

 names of panther mounds, and to others bear mounds and lizard mounds. 

 In Wisconsin there is one man mound. 



On one of the bluffs in the proposed National Park area south of Mc- 

 Gregor there is a very fine group of three or four buffalo mounds. 



Two lie in what is now pasture and are well preserved. One recog- 

 nizes the animal at once by the humip on its back and the general pose. 



The others lie in a cultivated field and they are only recognized as 

 mounds by the slight elevation of the surface where they were and the 

 different color of the soil. As this pasture is likely at any time to be 

 plowed up, what is probably the only group of buffalo mounds in Iowa will 

 then be destroyed. 



Two miles north of North McGregor on top of a high bluff, with a 

 magnificent panorama of river scenery stretching away north and south, 

 lies scattered irregularly about, what is without doubt the finest group of 

 effigy mounds in the state. There are ten animals of the bear form and 

 two birds night hawks besides which there are two long embankments. 



The greatest length of any of the animals is one hundred feet. From 

 tip to tip of the bird wings is the same distance. 



About half-way between Lansing and New Albin on a terrace at the 

 foot of which runs the road between the two towns, and the route of the 

 proposed North Iowa scenic trail, lies a group of round mounds. With 

 three exceptions this group lies in pastures and has suffered no mutila- 

 tion. 



It is probably the most easily accessible good group of mounds of tho 

 burial type in Iowa, 



Driving along what is even now a fairly good road and which with a 

 moderate outlay could be made a fine one, you stop your car at the foot 

 of the terrace, climb sixty feet to the top, and there they are. Back of 

 them lie high broken and picturesque bluffs; in front the sloughs, lakes, 

 and wooded islands of the river flood plain. 



