172 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 



5th. The evidences of religious observance: (a) the pres- 

 ence of the effigies surrounding the enclosure; (b) the num- 

 ber of burial mounds in the vicinity; (c) the altar and place 

 of cremation. 



6th. The situation of the w^orks as related to the surround- 

 ing country: (a) its connection by streams and trails with 

 other centres of population; (b) its location on a lake or 

 river; (c) the character of the country surrounding as fur- 

 nish opportunity of changing signals with distant points. 



7th. The last characteristic and the chief is the presence of 

 the enclosure. In this case the enclosure was marked^ and 

 affords undoubted evidence that a village was located here. 



III. These evidences of village life have been dwelt upon, 

 for they are essential in fixing the points where other villages 

 were located. The comparison between this village of the 

 emblematic mound-builders and the known villages of the 

 later tribes have given us certain characteristics, but the 

 comparison is hereafter to be between one village of the un- 

 known people and other villages which may be presumably 

 fixed upon. It is a method of gradual approach. 



IV. We proceed, now, to consider other village sites, and to 

 compare these with the one which has been identified. The 

 second locality where an ancient village has been identified 

 is at Waukesha. The points of .resemblance between the 

 two localities are as follows: 



1st. The locality was favorable for the subsistence of 

 a large population. The same forests which intervene 

 between the Fox river and the lake stretch north- 

 ward, and here forms a border line between wood 

 land and prairie, and between one form of natural 

 products and another, thus affording a double supply of 

 wild game and of nature's cereals and fruits. The local- 

 ity is similar to that at Great Bend, in that there was an 

 extensive prairie bordering upon an extensive marsh, and 

 similar surroundings of high hills, and the same variety of 

 soil, At this place there were formerly extensive groups of 

 emblematic mounds, some of them on the prairie itself and 

 some of them in the openings surrounding, and some on the 

 summit of hills in the vicinity. It is evident from the na- 



