Ancient Villages Among Emblematic Mounds. 173 



ture of the works that here had been a center of native 

 population. See map, Fig. 5. 



The Fox river, also here furnishes a similar expanse of 

 marsh filled with wild oats. The advantages for gaining a 

 subsistence from the forests, and the stream and the open 

 prairie are similar to these found in the previous locality. 

 There are signs here of cultivation of the soil. (See Fig. 6.) 

 We quote from Dr. Lapham: "Much of the ground 

 about Waukesha was, in 1836, covered with Indian corn hills 

 or remains of the recent culture of maize. In this locality 

 as in numerous others, the mounds occupy the highest ground 

 and the points of hills and other places whence the most ex- 

 tensive view, both above and below can be obtained. The 

 town of Waukesha stands on a slightly undulating plain 

 surrounded by hills, forming a fine amphitheatre, which in 

 ancient times was doubtless crowded, as it is now, with nu- 

 merous population. One fact is important in this connection 

 — the mound builders occupied the same localities that are 

 now the favorite resort of the present Indians, who still 

 often make use of the mounds for the burial of their dead. 

 They have a kind of veneration for them which may be the 

 result of a lingering tradition. We need not look to Mexico 

 nor any other country for the descendants of the mound 

 builders. We probably see them in the present red race in 

 the adjacent regions. Different tribes have different habits, 

 and a stronger one may have overrun and swallowed up a 

 weaker and then changed its customs and destroyed its in- 

 stitutions. 



The corn hills found in this vicinity if they do not prove 

 that the mound builders were agriculturists, or that here 

 was an ancient village of the mound builders, at least they 

 show the advantages of the locality. There are caches near 

 Waukesha. A gentleman, long resident of the country, 

 who owns a farm one mile east of the city, has pointed out 

 a number of these caches on his land. They are like those 

 at Great Bend, situated on the edge of a marsh and hidden 

 away among deep forests. There are no effigies guarding 

 these caches, and so we cannot ascribe them to the people 

 who built the emblematic mounds. The coincidence, how- 



