92 Indian Mounds and Earthworks. 



There is nothing remarkable about the oblong mounds. The 

 circular tumulus in the centre is the highest, and overlooks the 

 whole group. Whether all or any of these earthworks contain 

 bones, we had no opportunity of determining. They probably 

 all do. 



The site of this interesting series is an elevated open prairie, 

 on the dividing ridge between the waters of the Wisconsin and 

 Rock rivers. These monuments are covered with the same green 

 carpet of prairie grass, intermixed with bright and brilliant flow- 

 ers, as the prairie itself. There is an intervening space near the 

 centre of the group, now overgrown with bushes, which probably 

 conceal some unnoticed mounds. The figures marked on these 

 and the other animal outlines in our drawings, indicate their di- 

 mensions in feet. 



We twice visited these singular specimens of Indian antiquity, 

 and consequently can speak with greater confidence as to the gen- 

 eral accuracy of the sketch accompanying this article. 



Half a mile westward of this remarkable group, and on the 

 same elevated prairie, occurs a solitary mound, about ninety feet 

 in length, representing an animal in all respects like those we 

 have described, but lying with the head towards the southwest. 

 [PI. 11. fig. 2.] 



Along the space of twenty miles from this position, extending 

 to the Four Lakes eastward, similar monuments, intermixed with 

 plain tumuli, are seen at almost every mile, in the lowest situa- 

 tions as well as crowning the highest swells of the prairies ; and 

 they are still more numerous all around those beautiful but almost 

 unknown lakes. It would be a ceaseless repetition of similar 

 forms were we to figure many of these, but the outlines of a few 

 of the most characteristic are introduced in the plate. Had time 

 and circumstances permitted a more leisurely investigation and 

 survey of some of the groups of this region, there is little doubt 

 but many drawings of a highly interesting character could have 

 been constructed in addition to those which illustrate this com- 

 munication- 

 Fig. 3, PI. II. An effigy ninety feet long,, in form resembling 

 the animal outlines previously described, is placed nearly at the 

 foot and at the point of a remarkable, picturesque, perpendicular 

 bluff, of coarse, friable sandstone, fronting a rich meadow, the 

 /avorite resort, no doubt, of numerous buffalos in olden times. In 



