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XV. Recent Archaeological Discoveries in the 

 American Bottom 



BY HENEY K. HOWLAND. 

 [Read before tUs Society, March 2, 1877.] 



A LITTLE below the city of Alton, in Illinois, and nearly opposite 

 the point where the Missouri debouches into the Mississippi, the 

 bluffs, which once formed the eastern bank of the river, gradually 

 recede from it, following, however, its general direction at an aver- 

 age distance of seven or eight miles, till, in the vicinity of Chester, 

 some eighty or ninety miles further south, they again approach its 

 margin. Between these bluffs and the Mississippi lies a stretch of 

 rich bottom land, intersected by numerous small streams, which 

 occasionally widen into lakes. Its wondrous fertility was such as 

 early to tempt the pioneers of the West to settlement, and in its 

 southerly portion the French planted several flourishing villages, 

 sleepy vestiges of which still remain, while to the northward a 

 migratory party from Virginia and Kentucky established them- 

 selves, and gave to their domain the name by which it is now 

 generally known, the " Great American Bottom." 



Long, however, before these sturdy tillers of the soil laid claim 

 to their broad acres, another and a ruder folk held right of dominion 

 there. They had long since vanished from the soil, and even tradi- 

 tion was dumb concerning them, but their age-enduring monuments 

 still remain to testify to the busy industry that reared them ; and 

 the notable character of these works, as well as their number, 

 certify to us that on this rich alluvial of the American Bottom 

 must have been established one of their greatest seats of emjiire. 

 In this remarkable system of mounds there seem to have been three 

 principal groups, one of which lay near the river border and within 

 the limits of the present city of East St Louis; another and lesser 

 group on the banks of Long Lake, some twelve miles northward ; 

 and the third, which is one of the most extraordinary groups in 

 this country, lies between Indian Lake and Cahokia Creek, some 



