FOWKE] EXPLORATIONS IN RED RIVER VALLEY 411 
Red River, are three flat-topped mounds. One is 5 feet high, one 
8 feet, the third only 18 inches. Since the country was settled the 
natural surface here has been raised several feet by deposits from 
overflow of the river, so the actual height of the mounds must be con- 
siderably greater than it now appears. They are so covered with 
brush, vines, and weeds that the size can not be ascertained; but 
they are not far from 75 feet across the top. 
On the Edward and Leach timber tract, on Lake Long, 24 miles 
northeast of Marksville, are three “squared” flat-topped mounds. 
One is 7 feet high by about 100 feet across on top; one 5 feet high, 50 
teet across; one 4 feet high and 25 by 60 feet across. There is also 
a round flat-topped mound 4 feet high and 60 feet across. The 
ground has been built up several feet around them in the last hundred 
years. 
A mound near Belledeau was explored by Moore, who found a 
number of skeletons. 
Thus it appears that the Caddo or house-mound type extends to 
the overflow lands of the Mississippi, from north of Vicksburg to 
south of Alexandria; and that the flat-topped or domiciliary mounds 
so common east of the Mississippi reach beyond that stream to the 
highlands on the west; but so far as present observation shows they 
do not reach far inland except along the Red River and perhaps 
some other tributaries. 
The largest and most complicated group of ancient remains in the 
State is located from a mile to 2 miles eastwardly from Marksville. 
The arrangement and extent of these works is shown in the map. 
(Pl. 64.) They reach for more than a mile along Old River, a bayou 
which is connected at both ends with Red River and spreads over 
the lowlands on each side whenever the water is high in that stream. 
The inclosures or embankments, the lodge sites, and some of the 
mounds are on the bluff; other mounds are on ground subject to 
floods. At the time they were built Old River was probably an open 
stream, flowing against the foot of the bluff all the year; now, 
except when Red River sends a part of its waters this way, raising it 
to its old level, the bayou is a sluggish pool, with a flat shore reach- 
ing several hundred feet from the bluff to the water. This shore is 
made up of earth carried down from the bordering land through 
wide, deep gulleys that have formed since the mounds were erected. 
Erosion is peculiar, almost erratic, here; aside from a few shallow 
valleys the surface a short distance away from the running streams 
is so flat that much of the rain water stands until it evaporates; it 
can not run off, and a clay stratum underneath is so compact that 
water percolates through it with extreme slowness. Beneath this 
clay is a much looser material, easily removed by such water as may 
