31 



the mound you look southward through the trees a view may 

 be got of the silver stream of the American, coming as if 

 directly toward the mound. Originally no doubt this tributary 

 flowed close by the mound, for the mound would undoubtedly 

 be built on the extreme point. But as from year to year the 

 American River deposited the detritus carried down by it, it 

 formed a bank or bar, and was gradually diverted from its 

 course, until now, the peninsula some hundreds of yards across 



Figure 3. 



its base, has become upwards of a third of a mile long. I infer 

 that this peninsula which I should say contains some seventy 

 acres has been formed since the mound — which from its posi- 

 tion seems for observation as well as for sepulture — was be- 

 gun. Some 200 yards down the point from the Grand Mound 

 occurs another small mound. This is some eight or ten feet 

 high, and fifty or sixty feet across. Along the point and close 

 past this small mound runs an old water course, now a tree- 



