Indian Mounds and Earthworks. 93 



front of this bluff, and enclosing the mound or effigy, is a long 

 earthwork in an exact straight line, about two hundred yards in 

 length, having an opening in the centre opposite to the animal. 

 The position of this earthwork indicates its having been designed 

 for the purposes of defence or fortification against an enemy ; 

 perhaps as an outwork to the strong hold in the rear, formed by 

 the bluff itself. The great Indian road to which we have already 

 referred, skirts along the outer or southern side of this embank- 

 ment. 



Fig. 4, PI, II. This sketch is drawn from the admeasurement 

 of a couple of animal-shaped mounds, between which passes the 

 same Indian path, at the distance of six miles west of the Four 

 Lakes. These figures are selected to shew that one, if not both 

 of them, represented a different species of animal to those we 

 have traced in the preceding outlines. In one instance only they 

 were depicted with the appendage of a tail ; the others were tail- 

 less ; and whether in the present case this deviation from the 

 usual configuration resulted from the caprice of the Indian artists, 

 or really depictured some beast more favored by nature than his 

 contemporaries, it is not easy at this period to decide. They are 

 respectively one hundred and twenty and one hundred and two 

 feet long, and perhaps may have been intended to represent foxes. 



Fig. 5. Beyond the Wisconsin Territory, on the north side 

 of the river of that name, in the region still held by the Winne- 

 bagos, are innumerable mounds, both of the circular and most 

 of the other forms we have figured. At one position, however, 

 near the river, and not far from English prairie, a group of six 

 of these appear to represent birds, probably the eagle, or perhaps 

 the crane, which was the ancient badge of the chiefs of a branch 

 of the once powerful tribe of Chippewas.* This sketch was 

 communicated to the writer by the person who took the original 

 admeasurements. The scale of these is about the same as the 

 preceding. 



PI. I, Fig. 2 is a tracing from a sketch drawn to a larger scale, 

 of a bird-shaped mound, in the same region ; which sketch was 

 furnished me by an intelligent individual, but of course I am 

 unable to vouch for its accuracy. Possibly the figures which 

 elsewhere I had noticed as possessing the general form of the 



* Col. McKenney's History of the Indian Nations. 



