Indian Mounds and Earthworks. 91 



of this chain of earthworks, and is now for many miles adopted 

 as the route of the mihtary road to the latter fort. We pursued 

 this route for a great distance along the dividing ridge between 

 the northern and southern waters ; and we continually saw me- 

 morials of the character above described, along its borders. 



What animals are represented by these rude monuments of 

 earth, now covered with the rank prairie grass, is not made alto- 

 gether apparent by their designers. If of the horse, the design 

 is somewhat doubtful. We were rather inclined, however imper- 

 fect the representation, to attribute the intention of the construc- 

 tors to be that of exhibiting the figure of the Buffalo ; an animal 

 which had here the finest pasturage, and an almost boundless 

 range, within one of the most ample hunting grounds, and were 

 exceedingly numerous at the time of the first exploration of the 

 country by the French. It is nevertheless to be admitted, that 

 the hump, a remarkable characteristic of the Buffalo, which it 

 would seem unlikely to have been omitted in the representations 

 of that animal, is never seen in these figures, which are distribu- 

 ted over the surface of so many hundred square miles of this 

 country. 



The respective dimensions of these animal effigies in our 

 ground plan, are 90, 100, 102, 103, 120, and 126 feet in length ; 

 all of them apparently represent the same description of animal. 

 Figures having precisely the same proportions in their outlines, 

 may be seen at very short intervals throughout the Territory of 

 Wisconsin, being generally from 90 to 120 feet, and extending 

 to 150 feet long. This form, although the most prevalent, is by 

 no means the only one, as we shall proceed to show. 



In the midst of this group, represented by our sketch, and 

 forming a very important portion of it, we have now to notice 

 the representation of a human figure, lying in an east and west 

 direction ; the head towards the west, and the arms and legs ex- 

 tended. Its length is one hundred and twenty five feet, and it is 

 one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that 

 of the other. The body or trunk is thirty feet in breadth, the 

 head twenty-five feet, and its elevation above the general surface 

 of the prairie, is about six feet. Its configuration is so distinct, 

 that there can be no possibility of a mistake in assigning it to the 

 human figure. 



