38 Ancient Remains, Animal Mounds, fyc. in Wisconsin. 



this sewer water was supplied from the river or not, others can 

 judge. Without the enclosure, and at those points where this 

 work is not protected by the river, are numerous mounds vary- 

 ing from three to twenty-five feet in height, and from twenty to a 

 hundred feet in circumference ; and particularly at the southwest 

 angle, there is an embankment forming the arc of a circle, with 

 projections resembling the buttresses represented in the main 

 wall, which requires but little stretch of the imagination to sup- 

 pose was intended as an outwork for the defence of that particu- 

 lar point. 



" In examining one of these mounds, I found the remains of a 

 human skeleton, which had been previously exhumed, although 

 by the action of fire the bones were so completely charred that 

 they readily crumbled to pieces in the hand. I preserved a small 

 piece of the skull, but have somewhere mislaid it or would now 

 send it you. 



" One word as to the ' brick wall f let me not be understood to 

 say that there is in the brick here found any regular appearance 

 of brick-laying, as at present practiced. The walls which I ex- 

 amined, and from which at many different points, with a mat- 

 tock, I broke off specimens, present now the appearance of a 

 mass of burned clay.* In what manner at first constructed, there 

 is nothing to indicate, but that the walls and parapets consist of 

 brick rudely burned and prepared with straw, after the ancient 

 mode, the different specimens I gathered bear sufficient witness." 



Fig. 2, approaching the form of a bear, is included in that ex- 

 tensive group of antiquities, before referred to, near Blue River, 

 upon the English Prairie. This embankment, being much more 

 elevated than many which I have examined, is about midway 

 six feet in height ; and in length, along the dotted line from east 

 to west, eighty four feet ; and its greatest width over the body is 

 twenty feet. Bearings, due east and west ; the head to the west- 

 ward, and the legs projecting southward. The whole figure, and 

 the grounds adjacent, are covered with Corylas Americana and 

 Lathyrus albidus, which shrubs, in this region, are indicative of 

 deep and rich soil. 



* A box, containing specimens of the "burned clay," as well as fragments of 

 rudely platted matting and human remains, in a charred state, dug from these ru- 

 ins, was some time ago forwarded through the curator, Dr. King, to the National 

 Institution for the Promotion of Science, at Washington, D. C. 



