THOMAS] ANCIENT WORKS NEAR LA GRANGE. 119 



The dwelling sites vary considerably in size, some being as much as 

 70 feet in diameter, and some of them 3 feet deep in the center after fifty 

 years of cultivation. 



Mound Xo. 4 is oblong in form, the longer diameter 165 feet and the 

 shorter 90, height 15 feet ; regularly truncated, with flat top, the length 

 on top about 100 feet. 



ANCIENT WORKS NEAR LAGRANGE. 



These works are on the top of the bluff facing the Illinois river, 

 just below the mouth of Crooked creek. The principal area occupied 

 is the top of a spur tianked by a ravine on each side and extending 

 back from the river with a level plateau. At the back, where the side 

 bluffs cease to form a sufticient natural defense, an embankment has 

 been thrown up. This extends across the area irom one ravine to the 

 other, measuring 597 feet in length, leaving a slope of 48 feet to a 

 ditch 30 feet wide and 8 or 10 feet below the level of the plateau beyond. 

 Immediately within the wall was evidently the main village, as here 

 are numerous saucer-shaped depressions or hut rings, and between 

 these and the margin of the bluff in a nearly straight line are three 

 mounds, one oblong, the others circular. With or without palisades the 

 place must have been easily defended in this direction. 



The only other assailable part of the bluff is a sloping ridge extend- 

 ing down toward the river on the left. This is fortified by an earthen 

 wall, breast high, which follows the windings of the crest and which has 

 a mound-like enlargement at each turn or change of sloi)e. 



The length of the nefirly level area from the rear wall to the oblong 

 mound or embankment is 492 feet; thence to the mound which is 

 on the very edge of the bluff the slope is marked and the distance is 

 315 feet. There are other mounds outside of the fort on the point of a 

 spur across the ravine to the right. 



A considerable collection of stone implements, mostly in fragments, 

 was made at this place, gathered from the surface. Onfy four mounds 

 were examined, as the remaining ones had been opened by others, who 

 found a number of tine stone hatchets, pipes, arrowheads, gorgets, etc., 

 mostly at the tops of the mounds. The dwelling sites are from 30 to 

 50 feet in diameter and from 1 to 3 feet deep. 



The four mounds opened yielded only human bones and a few Irag- 

 nients of stone implements. 



In one, diameter 50 feet, height 15 feet, lay a human skeleton at the 

 bottom, much decayed. 



In the second, diameter 40 feet, height 10 feet, were decaying bones, 

 stone chi^js, and fragments of pottery. 



No. 3, diameter 60 feet, height 15 feet, full of bones. 



No. 4, diameter 50 feet, height 15 feet, many bones. 



As all the human bones found in the last were near the surface, at 

 the toi) or sides, they are iiresutnably those of modern Indians, and the 

 mounds may have been tuilt for other than burial purposes. But those 



