THE ANTIQUITIES ON THE BANKS OF THE MIS- 

 SISSIPPI EIVER AND LAKE PEPIN. 



BY DR. L. C. ESTES. 



For several years I have given these mounds attention, and therefore hope 

 that the following remarks in regard to them may be of some interest. 



The questions regarding certain fortifications or mounds alleged to exist on 

 the banks of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river was early discussed, and now, 

 although it is true that these remains do exist, yet eighty or ninety years have 

 made great changes in their appearance, or else the descriptions of them furnished 

 to us by early travellers must in a great degree be visionary. We can very easily 

 imagine that they were once used for fortifications, but they have now scarcely 

 any resemblance to modern forts. 



These mounds are found in great numbers in various parts of the State, mostly 

 upon the west bank of the Mississippi river. The location of them about Lake 

 Pepin is very marked. A portion of the village of Lake City is built upon and 

 over these remains. Between my residence and the lake there seems to have 

 been a regularly laid out town or city. The streets are regular and the mound» 

 equidistant from each other. In the centre of this city there was a very large 

 mound, much larger than any of the others, which was located in the centre 

 of the widest street, and the only one out of line. It was very probably the 

 " headquarters," the residence of the chief, or it might have been the town hall. 

 Nine years ago I sketched and counted these mounds There were about one 

 hundred of them, occupying, perhaps, a space of thirty acres 



My theory, which once differed from every other, as to the original design or 

 use of these mounds, is now, I believe, indorsed by the State Historical Society, 

 and by most persons who have investigated the subject. I am very well satis- 

 fied that the large and elongated mounds were designed and ixsed for fortifica- 

 tions. Yet I have never been able to determine whether there were ever any 

 ditches around them. 



I am also as well satisfied that the very many round mounds found standing 

 separate from each other were simply turf houses, in which once dwelt a people 

 far above, in point of intelligence, the present race of savages. The common 

 idea that these mounds were recepta^es of the dead, or that each one is 

 now or has been a sepulchre, is a theory which none have been able to main- 

 tain . I have dug into and seen many of them levelled, but never succeeded in 

 finding human bones but in one, and those in the large mound standing in the 

 centre of the city of mounds before described, and I am convinced that these 

 were of more recent interment, and that they belonged to the existing race of 

 Indians. It was a natural and convenient place in which to bury their dead. 



Every investigation proves beyond a doubt, in my mind, that these works 

 were built of turf, and that they are always composed wholly of the upper strata 

 of soil, and that there is no perceptible depression of the earth around their base. 

 Again, the soil in the vicinity is not found as deep as in other places, proving 

 that it had once been removed. If these mounds were originally sepulchral in 

 their design, then in all we should find human bones. 



