Enihlematic Mounds. 



211 



necting lookout stations, on which warriors might watch the enemy com- 

 ing down the Wisconsin river, or up the Mississippi river, and so notify 

 the people residing in the village of the danger that threatened them . At 

 least the lines of long mounds and round mounds seem to follow along the 

 ridges which intervene between the two rivers, as if the object was to con- 

 nect the valleys by lookout stations and elevated roadways. The view 

 from the edge of the high bluffs is always extensive and commands the 

 bottom lands below. There are, however, lines which extend from the 

 face of the bluffs back to the jDrairies and open plateau in the interior, and 

 an explanation of these would be that they were elevated ways on which 

 hunters might run while watching the game that should be driven from 

 the plateau down the gorges to the bottom land below. 



Mail 1. 



The explanation, however, is not the purpose of the survey, but merely 

 the statement of the facts. The long lines of mounds on the bluffs, all seem 

 to have effigies, and the object was to ascertain what kind of effigies they 

 were. The lines which were followed out were more or less directly con- 

 nected with the group in %vhicli the elephant efiigy was situated, at least 

 they were on the bluffs which overlooked the same terrace and we under- 

 stood some of them were on the edge of the same gorge through which the 

 water would make its way, while passing through the swail wliere the effigy 

 mound is seen. The elephant effigy forms the southernmost limit; but the 

 northern limit of the long mounds and effigies upon the bluffs is seven or 

 eight miles distant, on the "Wisconsin river. The groups on the bottom 

 lauds and on the bluffs adjoining, seem to form connecting links, so that if 

 one were to study one group, he needed to study all. There are three or 

 four lines of effigies on the bluffs and three or four groups of parallel 

 mounds on the bottom lands. One object was to see if there was any con- 

 nection between the different parts of this system. Another object was to 



