MONUMENTS. 275 



and here, near a bluff of sandstone, of a very picturesque 

 and fantastic outline, commence our particular descriptions. 



'^ There is a group of works about eight miles east of the 

 Blue Mounds. It is on the great road from Prairie du 

 Chien, through Madison, to Lake Michigan — a road so 

 decidedly marked by nature, that I presume it has been the 

 thoroughfare, the ' trail,' the great ' war-path,' ever since the 

 region in the vicinity has been inhabited by migrating man, 

 and will continue to be his pathway until the hills and the 

 rivers exchange their places. The sand-bluff surmounted 

 with pines is here a picturesque object ; and the streamlet 

 and springs not very distant, with a few scattering trees for 

 fire, have long made it a camping ground. Mr. Taylor has 

 represented only one of the two 'effigies' which occur at 

 this point ; the other was probably so overgrown with grass 

 and small hazel-bushes as to escape his observation. Our 

 encampment was near this place ; and in the midst of some 

 discussion with regard to the tumuli, they were opened to 

 see whether they were stratified, and whether the black 

 mould continued underneath them, even with the surrounding 

 surface. No. 2 was composed of sand, w^ithout any change 

 to mark an original surface below, although it is now over- 

 gi'own with gi'ass, and is covered with a thin black mould. 

 The wdiole of this descent, near the bottom of which the 

 figure lies, has evidently been formed by the disintegration 

 of the soft incoherent sandstone bluff contiguous ; and at the 

 time of forming this tumulus, it was very probably destitute 

 of loam at this point, as it now is at a point still nearer the 

 bluff. A section of the embankment near the gap exhibited 

 a thin line of this loam, even with what might be supposed 

 to have been the original surface of the groimd. Alluvial 

 stratification is positive proof that a formation is not artifi- 

 cial ; but the absence of a base of mould is not positive 



