May 2, 1890,] 



SCIENCE. 



275 



Whirlwinds. 



It was my fortune a few days since to see a small whirlwind at 

 the distance of but a few rods. The wind at the time was from 

 the west, and was cold, and somewhat gusty and variable. The 

 ■whirl persisted for several minutes, dying: down and increasing 

 again. Its direction of rotation was from right to left. As it 

 passed across a road, the dust was lifted to a height of about 

 thirty feet, forming a pillar, which disappeared when the grass 

 at the roadside was reached. The query that arose in my mind 

 was as to the nature of the currents which produced this upward 

 movement of the dust. Such movement has commonly been 

 ascribed to the suction effect of an indraught towarf^s the whirl 

 which has been supposed to exist. But as the breeze continued 

 to rise, 1 could not help but notice that dust was lifted equally 

 high by the chilly wind at points where there was no evidence 

 whatever of a whirl. Such lifting by a cold wind blowing 

 straight along certainly could not have been due to an upward 

 current produced by an indraught. Indeed, this lifting resem- 

 bles precisely the movements of sand at the bottom of a stream 

 beneath eddies formed by the varying force of the current, a 

 phenomenon readily observed in clear water. 



M. A. Veeder. 



Jjyons, N.Y., April 23. 



Effigy Mound in the Valley of the Big Sioux River, Iowa. 



While at Sioux Falls, S. Dak., in the latter part of last July, I 

 tou'u the opportunity to look up and survey a group of mounds 

 and a fort that are located about sixteen nn'les south-east of that 

 city, in the valley of the Big Sioux River. In 1885, I was in- 

 formed by an engineer, that, in running a preliminary line for a 

 railroad a few years previous, he had passed through a group of 

 mounds in that locality, and that there was a large fort just south 

 of them. 



The group in question is in the western part of Lyon County, 

 lo., a mile and a half west of Granite Station, on the Sioux Falls 

 branch of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Northern Railroad. 

 The country bordering the river here is more or less rolling and 

 broken, especially on the western side. On the east side, at the 

 Burlington crossing, there is a plateau which Is from twenty-five 

 to fifty feet in height above the river, and slopes to the south- 

 ward. Bloody Run flows around the north end, and empties into 

 the river near by. 



On this plateau, to the north of the railroad, there are a hun- 

 dred and five mounds, ranging from a foot to five feet and a half 

 in height. Nearly all of them are common round burial-mounds; 

 but among them are a few that are elliptical in shape, and there 

 is also one animal effigy. The latter is 55+ feet in greatest length, 

 and the body is 2^ feet in height. While apparently rude in de- 

 sign, the outliue on the ground is regular, and the surface of the 

 mound is smooth and symmetrical. There are many imitative 

 mounds in the etfigy region of Wisconsin that are no better in 

 outline than this one. The peculiarity of this effigy consists in 

 its isolated position, there being no others known to exist in the 

 interm. diate space betiveen it and those to the eastward in the 

 Mississippi valley, a distance of fully 370 miles. It is also the 

 first mnund of this class discovered within the limits of the Mis- 

 souri River basin; and its position, therefore, is analogous to 

 those of Ohio and Kentucky, yet the isolation is not so great. 



There is no system in the arrangement of the mounds, they be- 

 ing located in a haphazard way, here and there, as fancy dic- 

 tated Scattered among them, principally near the centre of the 

 group, are a large number of that kind of stone monuments 

 which, in a published article on the subject, I have called •' bowl- 

 der outlines." Some of these extend up on the sides of the 

 mounds, and in one case one of the larger mounds is surrounded 

 by a circle of bowlders. These instances denote a later occupan- 

 cy, or at least that they were placed there after the mounds were 

 constructed. 



Just south of this group, on the south side of the railroad-track 

 which separates them, there is a large fort or enclosure, of an ir- 

 regular elliptical shape, which is the largest one known to exist 

 ■north-west of Ohio, except " Aztalan," Wisconsin. Its inside 



area is about fifteen acres, and the walls at the present time are 

 from one to two feet in height, with an average width of eighteen 

 feet. They were probably palisaded when in use. This fort was 

 also built after the mounds were constructed, for at one point the 

 wall intersects a mound which is three feet and a half in height. 

 That the mound was built first, is evident from the fact that the 

 wall was raised in height at the junction, in order to surmount 

 and pass over it without abruptness. Within and around the 

 fort there are seven mounds, and between the fort and the rail- 

 road there were several others which have been destroyed by cul- 

 tivation. 



There is plenty of evidence to show that the plateau was occu- 

 pied as a place of residence at some period in the past. Burned 

 stone and chert flakes are especially numerous, while occa-ionally 

 stone axes, celts, grooved hammers, arrow-heads, and ornaments 

 of stone and copper, are found. Fragments of steatite vessels 

 and pottery composed of shell and clay, and pulverized stone and 

 clay, are also quite plentiful. Occasionally ornaments, beads, 

 and tubes made of sea-shells have been found in some of the 

 mounds in this and other groups in the vicinity. 



This locality was visited in November, 1886, by Professor Fred- 

 erick Starr of Cedar Rapids, lo., on which occasion he excavated 

 four mounds, two of which were situated on the south side of the 

 railroad track. He described iheir contents in the American An- 

 tiquarian for November, 1887 (vol. ix.). In his article he men- 

 tioned the existence of the " stone circles," but no reference was 



made to the fort or the effigy. The mounds in which his exca- 

 vations were made were within three hundred feet of the north- 

 east wall of the enclosure, which was certainly in plain view; 

 and it is strange that it should have been overlooked by him. 



It is evident that this point was at one time a site of the 

 mound-builders, and that later they were compelled to fortify 

 themselves against some hostile neighbor. The large amount of 

 village dibris scattered over the plateau, the great number of 

 burial-mounds in that vicinity, together with the size of the fort, 

 indicate also that the inhabitants were quite numerous. 



T. H. Lewis. 



St. Paul, Minn., April 23. 



Gorse or Furze. 



The following is a copy of an extract from a letter from the 

 United States commissioner of agriculture, dated March 28, 1890, 

 acknowledgingthereceiptof a specimen of gorse or furze discovered 

 by me growing near Ham pton.Va , and stating, that, as far as that de- 

 partment is aware, this is the first instance known of its presence 

 in this country: "Your note of the 26th inst., and the small box 

 of specimens of the Euiopean furze {Ulex Europaus), teceiweA. 

 This plant was probably introduced into the grounds of the Fort 

 [Fort Monroe, Va.] many years ago, and does not seem likely to 

 spread so as to become particularly obnoxious to agriculture. I 

 am not aware that it has been observed in any other part of this 

 country in a wild state " 



I should be glad to know whether it has ever been seen in the 

 United States before. J. R. McGinnis. 



Port Monroe, Va., April 23. 



