200 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



with stockades. Where the Governor stayed was a great lake near to the enclos- 

 ure; and the water entered a ditch that well-nigh went round the town. From 

 the River Grande to the lake was a canal, through which the fish came into it. 

 and where the Chief kept them for his eating and pastime. With nets that were 

 found in the place, as many were taken as need required ; and however much 



might be the casting, there was never any lack of them. The Cacique 



of Casqui many times sent large presents of fish, shawls, and skins. '* 



"While the earth removed in the construction of the ditch and excavations 

 was primarily employed in the erection of the tumuli within the enclosure, while 

 they may in one sense be regarded as the sources of the mounds, and while their 

 sizes and depths were, to a certain extent, regulated by the supply of mate- 

 rial requisite for the completion of the projected truncated pyramid and its 

 dependent mounds, we are of opinion that, during the progress of the entire 

 work, direct reference was had to the final use of these excavations, and of this 

 canal as fish-preserves, whence the priests, caciques, and noted personages of the 

 nation, who probably dwelt within the enclosure formed by the moat and the 

 river, could at all seasons derive an abundant supply of fish. The canal leading 

 from the artificial pond in which it takes its rise communicates directly with both 

 reservoirs, and, after passing them, empties into the Etowah. Through this canal 

 fishes could have been readily introduced from the river into all three of these 

 artificial lakes, and there propagated. Cane or wooden wears in such common 

 use among the Southern Indians during the sixteenth century would have pre- 

 vented all escape, and thus these reservoirs would have answered the purposes 

 of fish-preserves. Such we believe them to have been."f 



Somewhat similar excavations accompanying tumular erections were seen 

 by Colonel Jones in other parts of Georgia, namely, in the neighborhood of two 

 mounds lying close to the left bank of the Savannah River, on the Mason plan- 

 tation, twelve or fifteen miles below the city of Augusta ; and on the site of the 

 " Messier Mound," located on Messier's plantation in Early County, about twelve 

 miles east of the Chattahoochee River .J Yet in these instances they present less 

 marked features than in the case of the mound-group in the Etowah Valley. 



I am not aware that excavations bearing the distinct character of fish-pre- 

 serves have been noticed in connection with the numerous mounds and mural 

 earthworks in Ohio. 



Fish-pens. I am indebted to my esteemed correspondent, Mr. William L. 



* Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto, etc.; p. 112, etc. 

 f Jones : Antiquities of the Southern Indians ; p. 186, etc. 

 t Ibid.; p. 152, etc.; p. 166, etc. 



