Ancient Remains, Animal Mounds, fyc. in Wisconsin. 23 



summit of some of these mounds, while upon others their branch- 

 less trunks lie prostrate and decaying, impressing upon the mind 

 of the observer the vanity of the shadows which the people of 

 an age long gone by had pursued. We also find them in the 

 sparsely timbered regions, as well as upon the undulating prairie 

 plains, principally in the vicinity of large water-courses, above 

 the influence of high freshets or inundations. It is a remarkable 

 fact, that they are seldom found upon hilly or upon sterile lands. 

 They are also, so far as has come under my observation, confined 

 to certain limits, seemingly in the form of the letter T, beginning 

 at Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi River, and extending east- 

 wardly, embracing the remains along the Wisconsin River, Blue 

 Mounds, and the Four Lakes, and continuing as far as Rock 

 River, to where the top line of the T, extending from Green 

 Bay, by the way of Fox and Rock Rivers, to the Grand de Tour, 

 in Illinois, touches the upright part of the letter ; these strips of 

 country are in width in proportion to their length, covering the 

 ancient works at Butte des Morts, Aztalan, Grand de Tour, and 

 all intervening points. There are, however, many isolated groups 

 in other parts of this region ; for instance, those northwest of and 

 in the vicinity of Galena, Illinois. Although their general posi- 

 tion seems to be as curiously planned as the structures themselves 

 individually are, it can be readily accounted for from the fact, as 

 before stated, that they generally exist in the vicinity of large 

 water-courses and lakes ; and the main streams of the Fox River, 

 of Green Bay, of Rock and Wisconsin Rivers, have their courses 

 in the shape of the letter above mentioned. 



May not those works which are found in the forests, have been 

 constructed when the lands upon which they exist were yet 

 prairie ? That this region was once wholly submerged, as the 

 sedimentary formations amply demonstrate, admits not of a doubt ; 

 subsequent to the subsidence of the waters then, and anterior to 

 the occupancy of these lands by the primitive wanderers who 

 constructed these works, some period must have elapsed ; could 

 the era when the waters subsided be traced by the fossils exist- 

 ing in the rock, the era of these ancient remains might be, pos- 

 sibly, conjectured.* We are all agreed, however, upon their re- 



* It cannot be supposed that our correspondent would unite two periods so re- 

 mote as the geological eras of the fossiliferous rocks of Wisconsin and the sedi- 

 mentary deposits which cover them, both of which must be considered as very 

 long anterior to the appearance of man on our planet. — Eds. 



