Ancient Remains, Animal Mounds, fyc. in Wisconsin. 39 



Fig. 3 is a group of three animal-formed mounds, which are 

 also upon the English Prairie, about eleven miles to the 

 eastward from fig. 2, and within the limits of Iowa County. 

 The destination of these figures, if I may use the expression, 

 seems to have been toward the northwest, their heads being in 

 that direction ; their legs, contrary to the direction of all others 

 which I have examined, are projecting northeastwardly. For a 

 more explicit description of these figures, the reader is referred to 

 the scale upon which they are drawn. In the vicinity of these 

 are many other figures, of various forms and dimensions. To the 

 eastward, at a short distance, commences a series of mammillary 

 mounds, varying from one to two and a half feet in height ; 

 these mounds are beautifully and with much regularity ranged at 

 convenient intervals, and extend over a distance of about five 

 hundred yards, terminating abruptly with a huge mound eighteen 

 feet in height, and in circumference at base two hundred and 

 twenty-five feet. To the northward and southward of the fig- 

 ures, and parallel with them, are numerous embankments with 

 intervening spaces, representing gateways, a further description 

 of which would only lead to unnecessary repetition. 



I am well aware that the actual existence of earth-works as 

 singularly shaped as those represented in the accompanying 

 plates, may be, and even is by many who reside in the midst of 

 them, looked upon with incredulity, which induces me to illus- 

 trate one of the many facts which proves that the minds of all 

 are not directed alike to the same subject. Quot homines tot 

 sententice — so, as various as are the opinions, so are the subjects, 

 upon which the tide of their reflections flows. Col. William S. 

 Hamilton, a gentleman who for many years has been a resident 

 of the west, and has for a few years- past been engaged in the 

 business of smelting lead in the village of Muscoda, surrounded 

 as it were by these monuments of antiquity, has almost daily 

 passed over many of them without observing their structure, 

 although the outlines of the numerous figures are very distinct ; 

 but after having their interesting features pointed out, Mr. H. 

 now acknowledges that what he has heretofore viewed, in the 

 various accounts which have appeared respecting them, as the 

 result of strong imagination or of wild fancy, he had become 

 thoroughly convinced of their singular beauty of construction 

 and of their remote antiquity. 



