94 GEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



bridge on Main street, several very large ones are preserved in the pri- 

 vate grounds of citizens. But the locality where they are met with in 

 the greatest numbers is on the banks of the Kishwaukee, in the south- 

 eastern part of the county, near the confluence of the two streams of 

 that name. Scores of them are scattered about here, and scores more 

 have been nearly obliterated by the sacriligious ploughshare of the 

 white man. The oldest inhabitants recall many occasions where bands 

 of Indians, pilgrim-like, returned to these silent mounds, and held over 

 them for days their mystic pow-wows. 



The oblong-shaped mound is of much rarer occurrence. At the lo- 

 cality in Eockford already alluded to there is a very remarkable one. 

 It is one hundred and thirty feet long, about twelve feet wide at the 

 base, and three or four feet high. 



Near by this one is a mound of the third class, or those having a fan- 

 ciful resemblance to some form of animal life. In Eockford it is known 

 as the " Turtle mound." But it resembles an aligator with his head 

 cut off more than it does a turtle. We give its dimensions : Whole 

 length, one hundred and fifty feet ; width, opposite fore legs, fifty feet ; 

 width, opposite hind legs, thirty-nine feet; length of tail, from a point 

 opposite hind legs to end of tail, one hundred and two feet; length, 

 from a point opposite hind to a point opposite fore legs, thirty-three 

 feet ; distance from opposite fore legs to where neck should begin, fif- 

 teen feet. 



These measurements were not made with exactness, but are simply 

 paced-off guesses. The figure lies up and down the river, on a line 

 almost north and south, the tail extending northward. The body rises 

 into a mound as high as a standing man. The feet and tail gradually 

 extend into the greensward, growing less distinct and indefinable, un- 

 til they cannot be distinguished from the surrounding sod. The mea- 

 surements across the body at the legs include those appendages, which 

 are only a few feet long. 



The effigy, whether of aligator, lizard, or turtle, seems to be headless, 

 and no depression in the surrounding soil would indicate that the ma- 

 terials out of which it is constructed were obtained in its immediate 

 vicinity. 



It is a curious structure, and one would like to know its true history 

 as he looks upon its partially defaced form. What were its uses, and 

 who builded its uncouth animal proportions, may be better answered 

 by the researches of the antiquarian than by the speculations of the 

 geologist. 



