ANCIENT WORKS IN THE VICINITY OF LAKE MICHIGAN. 13 



The banks of rivers appear to have been their favoi'ite localities; and in this 

 respect they resemble the present Indians, who select sites commanding a view 

 of the country around them (so as to be able to detect the first approach of an 

 enemy), anfl near hunting and fishing grounds. They appear also to have had an 

 eye for the beautiful as well as the useful, in choosing their places of abode. 



From the same hills on which are found these mounds, the workmen, in grading 

 streets, digging foundations for buildings, preparing terraces for gardens, &c., often 

 disinter the skeleton of an Indian, with its accompanying ornaments, and perhaps 

 his brass kettle placed at the head. A number of the skulls thus brought to light 

 were sent to Dr. S. G. Morton, to be used in the preparation of his Crania 

 Americana.^ 



The bluffs along the Milwaukee Eiver, on which these works are mostly situated, 

 have an elevation of from 30 to 100 feet above the water. They are usually quite 

 steep, though not so much so, except in one or two places, as to be precipitous. 



There is evidence, drawn from the presence of deposits of fresh-water shells in 

 layers of sand and gravel, that the waters of the lake at this place once stood at 

 a level considerably above their present height ; and at that time much of the site 

 of the present city was submerged. The bluffs were then washed by the waters 

 of the bay, and presented steep broken fronts. The banks were gradually under- 

 mined, and slides of considerable extent occurred precisely as is now seen on the 

 present margin of the lake. Whether this subsidence was subsequent to the erec- 

 tion of the mounds, is uncertain, their situation being such as to throw no definite 

 light upon the subject. There are no works below that level that can lay claim 

 to great antiquity. 



The ancient works about Milwaukee are most numerous at a place near the 

 small creek called the Kinnickinnic, and on lands known as the Indian Fields. 

 They are chiefly in section twelve, township six, and range twenty-one, town of 

 Greenfield. When the country was first settled (in 1836), the place was destitute 

 of trees, and exhibited signs of recent Indian occupancy and cultivation. The 

 creek borders it on the south and west, and an extensive swamp on the north and 

 east, thus separating it from the adjacent country, and rendering it secure from 

 sudden surprise or attack, without the necessity of extensive works of defence. 

 It will be observed, as we proceed, that similar circumstances were often taken 

 advantage of by these careful people. 



The fields lie at a considerable elevation above the Ijottom-lands of the creek, 

 and are much broken and uneven in surface. The soil is loose, sandy, or gravelly, 

 and could be easily worked by the rude instruments of the aborigines ; which may 

 have been an inducement for selecting this spot. The subsoil is gravel, to an 

 unknown depth. The Milwaukee and Janesville plank road passes through the 

 fields; and the wood land adjoining has been adopted on account of its gravelly 

 soil, undulating surface, and beautiful forest-trees, as the site of a cemetery for the 

 city, named appropriately the " Forest Home." 



Sec that work, p. 179. 



