SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 

 MOUND BUILDERS. 



The first explorers of this valley were surprised to 

 find in the solitudes of the wilderness, overgrown with 

 ancient forests, huge earthworks, concerning which the 

 Indians had not even a tradition. Interest being once 

 aroused, these works have become the object of great ex- 

 amination and much study. 



They have been found over a large part of the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley. They are so numerous that Ohio alone 

 is estimated to contain some thousands, large and small. 

 They vary greatly in magnitude. Some are trifling em- 

 bankments scarcely rising above the surface of the 

 ground, or little hillocks three or four feet high ; while 

 others, like the works of Newark and Portsmouth, in 

 this State, embrace fourteen and sixteen miles of em- 

 bankment; or, like the mound at Cahokia, Illinois, 

 have a base of six acres, a summit platform of five acres, 

 and a height of ninety feet, containing twenty million 

 cubic feet of earth. 



They vary as greatlv in design as in size."; The pur- 

 pose of some is obvious; the intention of others has 

 not yet been divined. Some are fortifications ; some 

 lookouts or signal stations. Some, filled with bones, 

 are clearly burial mounds. The large conical mounds 



